So Norman Sickles said, but he wasn't the man to lose his vessel or risk men's lives. The Orion was holding on. She was going to force us. When Norman Sickles saw that, he motioned with his arm for the man at our wheel to keep off. But the Sirius wasn't keeping off. Norman Sickles turned and yelled: "Keep her off—off—off, I say!" starting aft, at the same time, to take the wheel himself.

He was too late. They seemed drawn together. We took a shoot. The Orion took a shoot. "Damned if she didn't get away from him!" I remember hearing one of our fellows jerk out, but I remember also I was left wondering whether he meant our vessel or the Orion.

They rushed together and g-g-h-h! Talk of a smash! Forty-five hundred tons of coal, nine-tenths of it below the water-line, and a breeze of wind! Either one would have sunk a battle-ship. It shook the spars out of the Orion. Her after-mast came down, the next one came down, the others were swaying. "The boat—the boat!" her crew yelled, but taking another look up at those wabbling masts, they waited to launch no boat. With few words but much action, they went over her side, one after the other, and began to claw out for the Sirius, on which—she was sinking too—our crew had a big quarter-boat ready to launch.

While the two vessels were still locked in collision I had seen Drislane come running from aft and leap into the Orion. I lost sight of him then, because with our captain I had jumped below into our cabin, he to save his ship's papers and I to save my firm's. We were on deck in time to get into our boat, and help pick up the crew of the Orion in the water.

Looking for Drislane then, I saw him and Captain Oliver Sickles at each other's throats in the stern of the Orion. There wasn't much left of her above water then. And on her deck it was a mess of fallen spars, with her foremast the only stick left, and that—unsupported by backstays and the wind still pressing against the big sail—that was wabbling. Even as we looked it came down—lower and top parts—with a smash which snapped the topmast off and sent it twisting and gyrating to where, after a bound or two, it rolled down and pinned to the deck the two battling men in the stern. With it came a tangled mess of halyards and stays.

We had picked up all of the Orion's crew from the water and were now hurrying to get to the two men on the Orion, which was fast settling, when a red-haired girl came running from the cabin companionway. Almost as if she had been waiting in ambush, she rushed over to the fallen spar, untangled the halyards from the legs of one of the furthest men, and after an effort lifted the end of the spar so that he could scramble free. She needed to be strong to do that; but she was strong. If she had held the spar up only an instant longer, the other man might have wiggled free too. But she let it drop back. The man she had freed she picked up and carried to the quarter-rail, where she waited for us in the boat. He made an effort as if to get back to the man left under the spar, but she would not let him. "Tain't no crime, Honey," I heard her say as we got to them. She went overboard as she said it, and we had to hurry to get her. "I know him a heap better than you-all, Honey—let him rest where he done fall to."

She couldn't swim, but we got them in time. She didn't mind us in the least. "He done tol' me, Honey, you was dyin' abo'd yo' ship 'n' o' coase I goes on down to see. It sure did look like yo' own ship, Honey"—she was saying to him before we had them both fairly in the boat. It was Drislane she had, his head cuddled on her knees till the tug came and got us.

We weren't in time to get to the man she had left behind. The last we saw of him was his head sticking out like a turtle's from under the fallen spar as the Orion went under.

* * * * *

We were all in Boston by Christmas Eve; that is, all of course but Oliver Sickles—and nobody gibed at his memory for that. He had his good reason.

The tug rushed the two crews up the harbor to our dock, where I left them while I went to get carriages and warm clothes and so on. When I came back Drislane and his Rose were gone and no word behind them. But the day after Christmas he came to the office early to get his semiannual check and cash it. I wasn't there, but he left word for me that he and Rose were married, and he was going to take my advice and go home to his people. The office force said that with him was a girl of glorious Titian hair and super-physique, who smiled wonderfully on him.

Captain Norman married the girl he should have married in the first place. And so all the good people came happy out of it; all except our firm. Nine thousand tons at two dollars per ton—there was eighteen thousand dollars' worth of freights that we never collected.

* * * * *

So there's the Orion and Sirius thing, only, in telling it at the Sailor's Haven the other night, our old stevedore didn't say anything of Rose's part in it. He probably didn't see what that had to do with it. However, he said enough to convince the lecturer, who was a pretty fair-minded kind, that perhaps he would have to reconstruct his views about sailors' superstitions.

And perhaps there is something in it; but it's a poor case won't stand hearing both sides of the evidence. "Hoodoo ships!" It's a fascinating phrase, but—Oliver Sickles it was who held the wheel of the Orion, and it was Drislane to the wheel of the Sirius, when they came together.



LEARY OF THE "LIGONIER"

It was a gloomy house, set in the shadow of a rocky bluff, and made more gloomy within by the close-drawn curtains. Since the news had come of the loss of John Lowe's son, no man in all Placentia Bay could say he had seen those curtains raised; and, so ran the gossip, John Lowe being what John Lowe was, a long time again before those curtains would be raised.

John Lowe sat reading his black-typed, double-columned page by the table, and over by the stove John Lowe's second wife sat rocking herself.

John Lowe's daughter came in, removed her shawl, and took a chair on the other side of the stove. Her stepmother spoke a word; but no word of greeting did her father offer until his chapter was finished, and then he no more than half turned, while his harsh voice asked: "Has he come into the bay yet?"

"He has. Tim Lacy, that shipped wi' him out o' here, was to Shepperd's to-day—and he'll be to Shepperd's to-night, Tim says."

"Tim Lacy. Another o' his kin. And what would be bringin' him to Shepperd's to-night?"

"It will be a dance to-night."

"Oh, the dancin'! No fear but you'll know o' the dancin'. An' he'll be there, the drinkin', murderin'——"

"It's no' right, father, to be speakin' like that o' a man you never set eyes on."

"An' how come it you know him, girl? Where was it you had truck wi' him? Where?"

"I never had truck wi' him. But I see him. Who could help seein' him—he was in an' out o' Shepperd's his last time in."

"Well, take care you see him no more. An'—" A step outside the door caused John Lowe to pause.

"Ah-h—" John Lowe almost smiled.

His wife glanced at the clock. "It will be the trader," she explained.

"Aye, an' now we'll ha' the news—now we'll ha' the news."

A knock followed the step, and, following the knock, the door opened and in stepped the expected trader. No wild daredevil, no sail carrier this, but a smooth, passionless man of business. And he got right down to business.

"By dawn, John Lowe, there'll be two hundred men of the bay drawn up on Half-Tide Beach. And an hour later the Ligonier and all's in her will be lyin' on the bottom of the bay—or so"—he glanced doubtfully at the girl—"or so we planned it. Will you be there, John Lowe?"

"He'll no' be there, Mr. Lackford." Mrs. Lowe half rose from her chair.

John Lowe glared at her. "And since when is it for you to say I'll not be there?"

"I'm your lawful wife, John Lowe. And who is this man would tell you what to do? You read your Bible night and morn, John Lowe, and you tell me and you tell Bess we should read it, too, and all the bay knows it. An' how can you preach to us as you do an' join in this deed? 'Righteous shall be all my days,' say you, an' you think o' joinin' a band that will sink an' destroy—yes, an' mayhap kill in the morning. This American has as much right to what herrin' his men can ketch as anybody else."

John Lowe turned to the trader. "She's right, Mr. Lackford, she's right."

"You'll not be with us?"

"I can't."

"After all you said! Well, there will be enough without you." He was still addressing John Lowe, but it was on the woman his eyes were bent. "Only let me carry back the word you'll not be against us."

"No, no—I'll not be against you."

"That's enough. Good night."

"Good night."

The door closed. They listened to the crunching of the trader's boot-heels on the pebbly beach outside.

"They'll be killing, mayhaps, in the morning, and it's well for you to be clear of it, John Lowe."

"But he lost my son."

"It was a natural death for a fisherman, John Lowe, to be lost that way."

"But what reason to love him for it?"

"What reason ha' ye to hate him till you know more of him?"

Silence reigned again in the kitchen; silence until John Lowe set aside his book and made for the stairs. With his foot on the bottom step he paused and sighed. "Even after three months it's no' easy to bear. But you're right, wife, it's no' right what some of them be up to."

"No, it's no' right. An' he's not the man Lackford an' the others would ha' you believe, John."

He looked long at his wife. "No? No doubt no—but no stop to it now. If there was a way to slip a word and not be known for it; but there's no way. Come to bed, woman. But"—the girl was standing up—"where be you off to?"

The girl looked to her stepmother; and the stepmother answered for her.

"It's o'er-early for bed yet—she's goin' for an hour to Shepperd's, John. Go on, Bess, but don't stay too long."

The girl snatched her shawl and hurried out.

"And is't so you manage her, woman?"

"Let be, man, let be. She's no child to be managed—your way o' managin'. Why shouldn't she have her little pleasure? What's one here for? Prayers an' psalms, prayers an' psalms——"

"An' do you rail against the prayin'?"

"Not me. Prayin's for good, no doubt; but all of us hasn't the sin so black that it needs prayin' night an' day to burn it out."

He glared at her. "An' you're waitin' up for her?"

"I am."

"Some night you'll wait o'er-long, woman."

"No, no. She's young, is Bess, and a bit soft. But no bad—no, no, no bad in Bess. She's all we ha' left now, John—lay a light hand to her."

II

Up to old man Shepperd's the dance was on, and Bess Lowe was there; and not long before the American captain blew through the door; and no dreary passage of time before he spied Bess.

"Why, Bess, God bless you, how are you? And you ain't forgot? And do I get a dance this evenin' or no? Tell me, do I, now? Ay, that's you—hard-hearted as ever. Eyes to light a vessel to port, but never a soft look in 'em."

"My eyes, Captain Leary?"

"Ay, your eyes, Bess. Eyes, Bess, that the likes of never looked across the bay before—eyes that flash out from the dark like twin shore-lights when a man's been weeks to sea."

"Oh, Captain Leary!" breathed Bess; and presently took to sighing, and from sighing to smiling, and all at once burst out into such laughter that the whole company took notice; whereat a huge, surly man in a corner went into the back room.

"Gi' me one drink and I'll smash him into bits," the big man said to Lackford, the trader, who was standing guard in the back room over the little jug which Shepperd kept handy for his guests.

"What, now? No. Not now, please, not now. There'll be plenty of chances for fighting in the morning. The crowd is only waiting for daylight to make a move. They want you. Come on now, do, and get a good night's sleep so's to be feeling good in the morning. Come on now. And you'll have two hundred men at your back in the morning, remember; and remember, too, that after you've put the American out of the way all the girls in the bay'll fall to your hand."

The big man was diverted, and passed out with Lackford, meantime that Leary, with an arm half around the girl's waist, was pleading: "The next dance for me, hah, Bess?"

"Ay, captain—who could deny you?" and they went at it.

'Twas a shuffling across the floor, a whirling of buxom partners by husky men, who never omitted to mark the measure with the thump of boot-heels that jumped the dust from cellar to roof. Shouting, stamping, joking, smiling, with quick breathing—such joy entirely it was, with Tim Lacy, oilskinned and jack-booted, leading the swing across the floor. Yes, and back again, although on him, even as on Leary, old Shepperd looked with disapproving eye.

"A wonder, Tim Lacy, you wouldn't leave your gear on your vessel," he snorted.

"Sure, an' I'm on my way to the vessel now, an' she'll be leavin' the bay for the States in the mornin'."

"You think she will," amended Shepperd, from behind the musician, who was his own strong-lunged daughter Sue.

On a chair atop of a fish-box in one corner was balanced Sue, a native genius, who puffed most industriously into a musical instrument made of a sheet of tissue-paper wrapped around a fine-tooth comb.

Tim Lacy, though he never let on, caught the sly remark. Less guileless than he looked was Lacy, a little man, forever lighting his pipe. He struck another match now, and between puffs delivered a belated message. So many years senior was Lacy to his skipper that he used to talk to him like a father.

"You know, as you said yourself, we was to hurry, Sammie—and do come now, Sammie"—puff—"and hurry on"—puff—"to Half-Tide Beach"—puff—"and there we'll take the dory for the vessel. Ah-h, there she's goin'. No, drat her, she's out again! Hurry on, boy. We oughtn't be standin' here all night. The crew'll be waitin' for us wi' the vessel at Caplin Cove. A special word they left for you, Sammie. They says if you was here"—here Tim stepped close and whispered—"as how I was to tell you they're feared for trouble."

He peered over the flame of the last-lit match at his skipper.

"'Tell him, Tim,' they says to me, 'that if we're to get the last o' the herrin' aboard that they're afeard it'll have to be an early start.' I misdoubt"—puff—"they have a notion of how there was goin' to be trouble. So come on; do, boy."

"One more, Tim; one more dance before we break up. A crime to go out on a cold night like this and not have a farewell dance. Come on, Bess; what d'y' say? There's the girl!"

Tim was gone, but back and forth Sam and Bess sidled and stamped, and many another minute passed with Sam still whirling his able-bodied partner, pacing her across and back again, lifting her off her feet, and swinging her—one, two, three full circles off the floor. And Sam was the boy could do it, a hundred and seventy pounds though she weighed, and continued to whirl her after the last dance till they were out of the room and into the shadows of the porch, where he snatched her up and kissed her fair.

The girl's heart leaped out to him. Did ever such a man make landing in the bay before? And surely he must think the world of her? Tenderness for him overwhelmed her; and out under the stars she whispered the words of warning in his ear.

"What's it, Bess? You're not foolin'? The trader to the head of them?"

"Ay, an' they'll be at Half-Tide Beach afore the sun rises——"

"D'y' mean, Bessie, d'y' mean——"

"I mean all that's bad they'll do to you, Sammie. I heard 'em my own self. 'What right has this American to come here and take the herrin' from our very doors? What right?' That's the way the trader talked to 'em in the back room afore you came in. 'In the old days I've seen men beat to death on the beach for less,' I heard 'em through the bulkhead. 'Ay, an' their vessels run up on the rocks somewhere,' he goes on. An' it's you, Sammie, they has in mind."

"And the crew to Caplin Cove, an' only me and Tim to stand by the vessel. The vessel and her full hold. But who'll get the word to them? If only there was some one, some one we could trust, Bess!"

"There is one that could do that, too, boy."

"Who? What! Yourself, Bess? Could you make where they are—Caplin Cove—alone, and by night—and tell 'em what's in the wind, so they'll be aboard in time, while I go and hurry after Tim Lacy to the vessel at Half-Tide Harbor? Could a woman like a man well enough to do that?"

"Well, women likes men sometimes, Sammie."

"God bless you, Bess, of course. And sometimes, too, a man likes—But, Bess!" She lay swaying in the hollow of his arm. "Bessie!"—and oh, the nearness of him! "I don't want to fool you, girl—we was carryin' sail the night your brother Simon was lost. A livin' gale, and she buttin' into it with a whole mains'l—you won't hold that agin' me?"

"How could I, Sammie? A man that's a man at all is bound to carry sail at times. And fishermen, sail-carryin' or no sail-carryin', they comes and goes."

"Ay, girl, and sometimes goes quicker than they comes. Oh, Bess, the fine men I've been shipmates with! And now 'twould take a chart of all the banks 'tween Hatteras and Greenland to find out where the bones of the half of 'em lie."

"But do go now, Sammie." She snuggled closer to him. "Have a care now, for I'm lovin' you now, Sammie."

"Ay, you are. And I'm lovin' you, Bess. But your father, Bess; he'll put you out."

"Well, if he do——"

"If he do, Bess, you know who'll be waitin' for you."

"Ay, I do. An' I'll come to you, too, no fear, boy. But no matter about John Lowe now, boy, so you won't forget me, Sammie."

"Never a forget, Bessie."

"Then hold me again, Sammie, afore we part. And don't forget—never a man afore did I like like I likes you, Sammie."

* * * * *

And Bess had gone and delivered her message to Leary's crew at Caplin Cove. "Be all hands aboard afore dawn and have her ready to sail," was Bessie's message, and with that put off for home in her father's little sloop. There had been stars on her run over, bright, cheerful stars that made you overlook the frost in the air, but no stars now. But that was the way of the weather in the bay.

In the lee of Shingle Spit it was calm enough, and so, for all the boom of the sea outside, Bess had time for revery. A gran' figur' of a man, Sammie Leary. Strong he was. Ay, strong. An' not stern. Lord knows, there was enough of that to home. No, no, saft-like same as Sammie—that was the kind for a woman to love.

And Sammie now. Out under the shadow of the porch he had said: "You're the lass for me." Ay, he did. But so many talked like that and meant naught by it, but took your kiss and your heart wi' the kiss and sailed away, and you never again see 'em, mayhap. There was Jessie Mann, and—Oh, no matter them. Sammie was none o' their kind o' men. An' yet—there were those who said that one like Sammie never made a good husband. Sailed wi' too free a sheet, he did. An' yet, did ever a vessel get anywhere without a free sheet at times?

And, thinking of a free sheet, Bess gave the little sloop a foot or two more of main-sheet. And there she was going through the water faster for it. And she would need to go fast through the water if so be she was to get home this night. And if she didn't get home—but 'twas o'er-early to worry about what her father would say.

But was it all so true about a free sheet? Was it no' true that, holdin' a vessel's nose to the wind, she'd sail her course wi' never a foot o' leeway? 'Twas so her father maintained. Always safest to be on the straight course, her father held. True enough, but wi' the wind ahead, what headway? None at all—while, if you let them run off a bit, when they did come back on the course they was farther on the road, arter all. Ay, so it was. And Sammie? What did the poor boy ever know of a home or a lovin' heart to guide him! Oh, ay, women should make allowances for men like Sammie. 'Twas the good heart in him.

Out beyond the end of the spit the little boat began to feel the pressure of the wind and the thump of the sea. She jumped so because there wasn't much ballast in her. An' there was the matter o' ballast now. A gran' thing in a vessel, a bit o' ballast—like religion in a body. Not all religion, like her father, for then 'twas like a vessel loaded down wi' ballast—took a gale o' wind to stir her, and a vessel o' that kind was no mortal use whatever—except mayhap for a lightship or something o' that kind.

The sea by now was coming inboard regularly, and Bess knew she should be carrying less sail; but it would mean a lot of time to reef the mainsail, and if she was to get on there was small time for reefing, 'specially as the wind was hauling to the east. A beat home now, as Captain Leary warned her, 'twould be. Surely she would never be home by daylight now. And colder now it was. Ay, it was. She drew the tarpaulin over her knees, and that helped to keep off the spray which, as it splashed up from her bows, was carried aft in sheets before every squall.

And those squalls were frequent. And little pellets of hail were thickening the air. And over the tarpaulin that covered her the ice was making. Sailin' by the wind, 'tis terrible cold. She was becoming drowsy—hard work to keep from falling asleep. Good enough for her—ay, good enough, her father would say—dancin' half the night and carryin' messages to strangers the other half.

The air softened and that was some relief; but in place of the awful cold—and still cold enough—was now the snow. And in that snow-storm, with the wind continually veering, she knew at last she must have run off her course; for the sound of the surf beating against the rocks came to her.

And what would that be? What now? Ay, Shark's Fin Ledge it must be. She must ha' sailed wi' too free a sheet, arter all. Ay, she must ha'. Time to come about now. But not so much sail on! Well, sail or no sail, it was time to come about. About she was comin'—ay—she was—no!—ay——

Over came the boom, and then high it skied, and then the wind took it and slit the sail from boom to gaff and off to leeward went the sloop.

Too much sheet that time, thought poor Bess, and could have cried at herself. And might have cried if she had nothing else to do. But no time now. Her little sloop was rolling and pitching in the seas, and drifting, always drifting; and in that snow there was no seeing how fast she was drifting in to the ledge; but fast enough, no doubt.

No use wailing over it. Bess took to bailing, and the work kept her from thinking overmuch of herself; only she couldn't help picturing her father with his Bible, and her stepmother waiting up for her. And Sammie? Never another dance or kiss from Sammie. And oh, the black disgrace of it if she was lost in the bay, when maybe they found her body ground to pieces on the ledge! There would be those who would say—what wouldn't they say—of her that couldn't hide her likin' for him up to the dance at Shepperd's?

III

The tail of the night found Leary striding over the hills. "Going to heave her herrin' overboard, are they? And she'll never clear for home, hah? She won't, eh?" And over the hills he ran. In and out, up and down, over the crests, and at last down the tangled slope across moss-grown rocks where lay the tide-tossed kelp, and onto the beach, where in the dawn he came suddenly on them.

A great shout went up when they were certain 'twas he; and down upon him presently they bore.

"Two hundred of 'em, maybe," calculated Leary, and looked wistfully toward where his vessel should have been laying to anchor. "If I weren't such a hand for skylarkin' she'd be lay-in' there now with Tim Lacy standin' by the old six-pounder, and she loaded to the muzzle with nails and one thing and another, ready to sweep the beach of 'em." And somewhat sadly he waited for the mob; and, waiting, wondered how Bess was making out, for the squalls were chasing each other off the hills, and out beyond the little harbor, all whitecapped, lay the open bay.

As a sea sweeps up and buries the lone rock under its surge, so did it seem to Leary that the mob must overwhelm him as he stood there alone on the beach. Annihilation! Their gestures and imprecations, as they drew near, implied nothing less. "Well, let it come!" and from his mind flew all but one clear idea. He would deal them all the damage he could before they overbore him; and if under their heels on the sand they strove to crush the life out of him, he would reach up and grasp as many as his arms would circle.

And then he heard the hail from behind him. He flashed a look. Yes, there was the vessel, and it was Tim Lacy calling. She was coming into the wind. Her jibs were down by the run. Ay, and there was the rattling of her chain-anchor.

"Skipper, oh, skipper," came the hail again, and he heard the hoisting of a dory. To one hand was the mob which meant his destruction; to the other hand by the open water to the vessel if he could make it. He had farther to go than they, but they were mostly in oilskins, and he was a rarely active man. That he knew. Away he went over the little bowlders.

Diagonally he had to go. A straight parallel to the beach it was for them. Fast as he was, some of them would intercept his way to the incoming dory. Three, four, perhaps a dozen would be there before him.

A dozen it was, and one huge man and Lackford, with no oilskins to hamper them, were in the front; and because they were in front they felt the force of Leary's arm. It would have been joy to stop and battle with them all, but that wasn't saving the vessel. He caught one with one hand, and one with the other—and it was so easy and so satisfying!

But that wouldn't be making Bess happy by and by. There were two more that he could have reached, but those two he dodged. But two now between him, and he was for stopping to box with them—the battle fever was getting him—but a voice came to him: "Don't stop for them, skipper. Come on. We're here."

Leary turned and saw, and raced for the water's edge. A wide leap and he was in the dory. They tore after him, minding not the fallen bodies in their eagerness. Up to their waists in the water they rushed with yells of rage. Stones came flying after him. A few struck him, but they were too small to do damage.

From the dory Leary faced them again. "That's you—two hundred of you—you spawn of dogfish."

"Blast 'em, Sammie, don't talk to them. Out oars, Ned, and drive her! Here's the kind of talk for the likes of them!" and between his skipper's arm and body Tim Lacy from behind thrust an old-fashioned heavy dragoon pistol. "Only one shot in her, but make that one good; here y'are, Sammie."

Leary's fingers curled about the stock of it, and it felt pleasant to the touch. Yet for all that he thrust it back, but as he did so Tim's dory-mate tumbled down beside Leary in the dory. On the bottom of the dory the jagged rock was rolling even as the blood welled from his temple. And then came a report—another, and a third; and with the third a bullet whizzed close.

"Blast you all!" shrieked Leary, and with a leg either side of the fallen man's body he held the pistol waist-high. "Come on now! Come on now, I say! You, and you, and you, you white-livered——"

"After him—drag him out of the dory!"

"Ay, drag me out! Come you and drag me out!" And threatening variously with his pistol, Leary pointed directly at what seemed to be a new leader, a man with a revolver. "And let me tell you"—he pointed to the armed man—"whoever you are, you round-shouldered, glue-eyed squid you, whoever goes, you go first. Mind that—whatever happens, you go first. I've got you, you pop-eyed, slit-mouthed dogfish—and now shoot again."

The man with the revolver shrank back; but Leary's pistol was still trained on him, and farther and farther he shrank until he melted into the body of the crowd.

In the rear of the crowd were those who struggled to get nearer. "Why don't you go after him down there?" they yelled. "Or let us do it? One man against you all! Why don't you pull him out of the dory?"

"Ay, pull him out! Send him to hell!" roared another.

"Well, send me to hell," retorted Leary—"maybe I've got friends in hell, too!"

Back onto the beach receded the mob. Leary turned to his mate. "To the vessel, Tim—and drive her!"

By the time they reached the vessel's deck the injured man came to. A cup of coffee and five minutes by the fire and he was ready to turn to, but Leary turned him into a bunk instead. "We've men enough without you—a full crew. Lie down, boy, and go to sleep." Which he did.

"Now, fellows, make sail. Drive her. The trader an' that whole crowd, they'll be after us soon in their jacks. Come on—lively—there's thirty sail of 'em ready to round the point! An', Tim?"

"Ay, Sammie."

"Get out that old salutin' six-pounder and lash it for'ard o' the windlass. Lash her hard so she won't kick overboard when she's fired."

"Ay, Sammie," and Lacy hurried off.

"And now, up with the jibs. And then mains'l—we've lost a lot of time already. With her four lowers and those squalls shootin' off the high hills from the other side of the bay, she'll soon have wind enough. And we've got to be out of here before the snow sets in. A bad place here in thick weather. Drive her, fellows—drive her!"

They were swaying up the mainsail when Leary happened to look over his shoulder. With the wind of the frequently recurring squalls taking hold of the great sail, they had a hard task to get it up; but at last it was set; and then they trimmed in the main-sheet, while Leary ran forward to the howitzer.

"What you got to load it with, Tim?"

"There's black powder enough, Sammie."

"But we want to do something more than salute 'em, Tim."

"M-m—there's the soundin' leads, Sammie."

"Get 'em!" And Tim went and came back with a deep-sea lead which he rammed in after a hatful or so of powder.

When all was ready four inches of the lead stuck out of the muzzle.

"No matter; you'll do," Leary commented, and cast another look toward the open water of the bay where were now twenty-five or thirty small schooners rounding the headland.

Leary now contemplated the anchor chain of his vessel.

"I hate to lose you, 'specially like this, but—" And without further word he reduced the chain to one turn of the windlass. "And now let all hands tuck away under the rail, all but one man to go aloft and look out for a small white sloop." And he took the wheel, where he was needed, for the squalls, in full force, were now whistling battle-hymns from deck to truck.

The fleet of jacks were now to be seen coming on rapidly; but presently, the squall proving too strong for them, they all came fluttering up into the wind and began to shorten sail.

"No heaving-to for this one, eh, Tim?" yelled Leary; and putting his wheel up, and feeling the Ligonier beginning to pay off and the anchor to drag, he gave the word to slip the cable.

Through the hawse-hole the clanking chain tore swiftly, and away came the Ligonier like a wild thing. Leary patted the wheel and began to talk to her:

"Crazy to get away, aren't you? Been laying too long to anchor, yes. No wonder. And I'll not stint you now—take your fill of it, girl." Which she did, and with Leary giving her plenty of wheel, through the white swash she scooped a long, wet rail.

Tim Lacy now came aft. "There they are waitin' for us—an' the joke of it is, Sammie, we c'n go out the North Passage with a fair wind. They must 'a' forgot that I was born and brought up in this very bay."

"But we're not goin' out the North Passage, Tim."

"No?"

"No."

"But why? An' it's a beat up by them."

"Well, a beat it'll be. Go for'ard now."

"What'll he be at now?" muttered Tim.

But Leary knew. One eye he had for the approaching fleet and one to the ledge of rocks toward which the Ligonier was winging. "Some of 'em, by this time, think we're trying to run away. But they'll know better in a minute. And now do you, Tim, stand by that old cannon."

She was almost into the rocks then, holding in for the last foot of clear water; but not for too long did he allow her to run on. Just in time he tacked, and then it was about and away, for the fleet of native schooners, who, watching her closely and assured now of her course, spread out to intercept her. Expert seamen themselves, nowhere did they leave a space wide enough for a rowboat, let alone a ninety-ton fisherman, to slip through.

And they were armed. A shot rang out. Leary looked to see where the ball struck, but among the endless merging of whitecaps there was no discovering that. "Not that I care where it hit, blast ye—ye'll never stop me now—for—hide under the rail you, Tim, with the rest—I'm after some of you." And he headed the Ligonier straight for the windward jack, which now he could see was that of the trader Lackford, whose round-shouldered figure in the bow betrayed him.

"Out of my way!" roared Leary before he realized that he was too far away to be heard against the whistling squall. "But you'll hear me well enough soon," he muttered. "And, Tim, so long as you won't hide away, stand by that old fog-buster, and be sure to have the lanyard long enough to let you hide behind the forem'st, for there's no telling—the old antiquity might explode. I don't s'pose she's been shot off this ten years. When I give the word, now—but wait, wait yet!" For a flying moment he brought the Ligonier's head into the wind. "Now!"

Boom! It made more noise than a modern six-inch. They could see the long lead go skipping under the bow of the trader's jack.

"Heave to!" roared Leary, "or the next one goes aboard." No question but they could hear him now. "Heave her to, I say! Ay, that's right. Load the old lady again, Tim. And now"—his voice rose high again—"you'd better all heave to, and stand aside, for this one's bound out, and 'll come blessed handy to cuttin' in two whatever gets in her way."

And they luffed, twenty-odd sail of them, with six to eight men aboard each, and stood to attention while the Ligonier, with her crew's inquisitive, grinning faces poked above her rail, came tearing up and by.

"And now let be your batteries, Tim, and run the ensign to the peak." Which was done; and passed on in glory did the Ligonier, the old six-pounder adorning one rail, a swish of white foam burying the other, the colors aloft, and Sam Leary singing war-songs to the wheel. And perfectly happy would he have been only the snow was thickening and no Bess in sight. But maybe she had got safely home. Maybe. And just then came from aloft:

"There's a little white sloop—an' some one in it—at Shark's Fin Ledge a'most."

"Break out that gaff tops'l, fellows—and you, Tim, go aloft and point the way—and hurry, afore the snow comes."

"Point the way to what, Sammie?"

"For a little white sloop with a girl in it."

"Ho-oh—that's it, is it?"

IV

Bess had curled herself up and was falling asleep; and her last sleep it would have been but for the boom of a small gun and the hail of a familiar voice. She stood up. Again a hail. And through the curtain of white it came almost atop of her, the grandest schooner ever was! The long lines of her seemed familiar. Then a clearer glimpse. Ay, she'd know her anywhere—by the rust on her jumbo she would—the Ligonier. And then it swept on by—ay, sailing as a wild gull.

Out of sight it went in the snow-squall, but leaving a voice in its trail.

"Bessie! Bessie!" it called.

And now no schooner at all. Gone it was. And she remembered that that was the way of it—the beautiful picture afore they went at last. But soon again the sweep of the great white sails and the black body beneath. And the beautiful handling of her! "Seamen, them!" said Bess admiringly, and then alongside it came—beautiful, beautiful.

Then two arms scooped down and swept her over the rail of the lovely big American schooner. A strong arm and a voice. "Oh, Bessie! Bessie! and the big, warm, foolish heart of you!" said the voice, and the arms carried her below and wrapped her in blankets and poured hot coffee, mugs of it, down her throat, and laid her in a bunk, while he sat on the locker and looked—just looked at her.

"Ah-h, Sammie!" murmured Bess blissfully. "An' now you'll bring me home, Sammie?"

"Ay, home, Bess."

"Ah-h! An' my mother'll no ha' to cry for me, arter all. An' father, too, he'll ha' no cause to—Ah-h, God love you, Sammie."

* * * * *

By the light of the kerosene lamp in John Lowe's kitchen sat John Lowe reading his favorite volume, harrowing tales of religious persecution centuries agone. And Mrs. Lowe sat rocking herself by the stove. Every once in a while she would hide her head in her skirt, and, on withdrawing it, wipe her eyes.

Now and again she would sigh wearily. "Too harsh, too harsh we were on the lass. The blood runs warm at her age."

Whereat John Lowe would turn and look fixedly at her, open his lips as if to say something but, always without speaking, refix his attention on the fine black print before him.

A knock on the door and a tall man in oilskins and sea-boots entered. "I've come to say—" he began: but by then John Lowe was on his feet.

"Captain Leary is it?"

"Captain Leary it is."

"Then, I've this to say to you, Captain Leary——"

"Hush, John. Captain"—beside her husband Mrs. Lowe stood trembling—"Captain Leary, we've a little girl—an' the story's around the bay——"

Leary raised a hand. "I know, ma'am; I know. Your daughter, Mrs. Lowe, she's safe. Yes, John Lowe, safe—in every way safe. No thanks to me, but to herself. And she and me, we're going to be married. Yes, ma'am, married. Don't look so hard, man. You're thinkin' now, I know—you're thinkin' it's a poor pilot I'll be for her on life's course?"

"Ay, I'm thinkin' so, captain, and not afeard to say it—I fear no man. Ay, a poor compass."

"Compass? There—a fine word, compass. But the compass itself that 'most every one thinks is so true, John Lowe, we have to make allowances for it, don't we? And after we've made the allowances, it's as though it never pointed anywhere but true north, isn't it? There's only one circle on the ocean, John Lowe, where a compass don't veer, but every ship can't be always on that line. And even when you're sailin' that one circle, John Lowe, there's sometimes deviations. And me—no doubt I have my little variations and deviations."

"Ay, no doubt o' that," muttered John Lowe.

"Ay, like everything and everybody else, John Lowe. But at last I've got to where I think I know what little allowances to make. I think so. And after we've made our little allowances, and we c'n make 'em in advance same's if we took it from a chart, why—there's Sammie Leary as true as the next one."

Mrs. Lowe laid her hand on the American's arm. "And Bess, captain; where is she?"

"Outside, Mrs. Lowe, with Tim. And she's waiting."

"Waiting for what?"

"To be asked inside. Will I call her?"

"Call her, captain—call her."

"Yes, Mrs. Lowe, but—" Leary faced the man at the table.

"Oh, well"—John Lowe sighed. "No doubt you ha' the right o' it, captain. You're one who ha' sailed many courses, an' your navigation, 'tis possible, is better than mine. Call her, captain, call her."

Next morning, for all the bay to see, the curtains in John Lowe's house were raised high.



HOW THEY GOT THE "HATTIE RENNISH"

On the word being passed that Alec Corning was back from the West Coast, a few reminiscent friends went to hunt him up, and found him in the Anchorage, in a back room overlooking Duncan's wharf; and Alec was agreeable, over a social glass and a good cigar, to explain how it came he was back in Gloucester.

"If they'd only let us alone I'd 'a' got—and Archie Gillis too—good and rich."

"Rich, Alec? You rich?"

"Well, maybe not quite rich, for that, o' course, would call for saving, but certainly I'd had a roll to spend before I was done—if only they'd let us alone. But would they? Man, the meddlers they were!—the brass-buttoned, steam-winched buttinskis!"

"But if that is their business, Alec?"

"M-m—maybe. But Russians, English, Japs—yes, an' American cutters and gunboats before they were done—you ought to seen them!"

Alec paused, but only for a quick breath. "We had the finest little scheme of sealing till they took to hunting us. Up and down the length and breadth of the sealing-grounds they'd up and chase us whenever they'd get word of us—from the Japan coast back by way of the Aleutians—clear down, one time, a pair of 'em, till we had to put in behind Vancouver Island and hide the Hattie behind a lot o' screen boughs."

Alec paused; this time for a longer, an almost reflective, breath. "That being their business, p'r'aps they were all right; but ain't it a fine thing when a gang wants to go seal-hunting that a lot o' gover'ment people must specify where they can kill 'em, and when?—and they swimmin' the wide ocean as the Lord intended! And our little vessel—the Hattie Rennish when she used to go fresh halibutin' out o' here—remember her?"

There were several who heartily remembered the fast and able Hattie.

Presently, letting the elevated front legs of his chair drop to the floor, Alec rested one forearm on the table and went on to tell of how at last they got the Hattie Rennish.

"'Twas a Californian man named Trumbull bought the Hattie when she was fresh halibutin' out o' Gloucester. A good sort of a man, and 'twas him got me, with Archie Gillis for mate, to bring her 'round to Frisco.

"But the time I'm going to speak of, the Hattie—painted green she was, and called the Pioneer—was layin' into Seattle, when a chap comes aboard with a letter from Trumbull to me explaining that certain aspects of the sealing business 'd been taking on a serious look to him lately and he'd sold the Hattie, and the party who'd bought her, letter herewith, might want to do business with me.

"The looks of the new owner didn't warm me toward him in the start-off. Looks, of course, ain't everything, but when you don't know much about a man you got to go a lot by his looks. Yes, you sure have. And I'd seen him before, joy cruisin' on the Barbary Coast one night with a lot of drunken sailors—only he wasn't drunk. And I knew what he was—some Chinese blood in him, and the name o' being a slick one. But I didn't say anything about that. Gratu'tously telling a man you don't like him don't lay you up to wind'ard any. No. And we sat down and he explains what he wanted. There was a consignment of a few bales of hemp waiting up on the British Columbia coast, and would I run the Hattie over and slip back with 'em? And we'd have to leave right away.

"Well, I would—after a talk. And with Archie Gillis and a few hoboes that called themselves sailors, which I'd picked up in Jack Downing's place in Seattle, we put out. Archie was mate and to get two hundred dollars and me five hundred.

"It was a fine night, that night, and we put out into the sound and worked our way up through the islands, and the second morning later slips into a little cove behind some high hills with trees along the banks—in Georgia Strait. Twenty-four hours we lay there, and then we hears a steamer's wheel, but we don't see her; only a couple of hours later the owner comes for me in a big ship's quarter-boat, and we work the Hattie over to a little island where we find a lot of bales wrapped in burlap and hid in a cook's shack.

"'That all?' I asks my new owner—Durks his name.

"'Oh, yes—there's a couple o' Chinamen here. But let's see—where are they?' He looks around. 'They're not here—strolling in the woods somewhere. We'll take them along, too,' he says. 'You won't mind that, will you?'

"Now there was nothing in the contract about Chinamen, and I didn't like the notion of him working 'em aboard in that way, but I said all right and soon as dark came we'd roll 'em aboard and put out.

"Well, the boss and I sits down to lunch in the cook-house, and by and by, with nothing to do but wait for dark, we stroll around the island. Now I'm no wizard in anything, but I always did have a good ear. And no harm at all, a good ear, when you got to do most of your own watching out. Before we'd gone far I knew somebody was trailing me and the new owner. I could hear steps behind us an' dead twigs snapping and somebody shoving aside branches, and once, when we stopped for a talk on the edge of a clearing, I knew I heard somebody breathing just behind the bushes which was hanging over the logs we were sitting on.

"Now I knew that this Durks wasn't very popular in the quarters where he did business, and 's I wasn't aching to have any Chinese tong man hit me over the head with any hatchet by mistake in a shaded wood, I just naturally fell out of step and lost him, and being some trailer myself, I took to trailing whoever it was 'd been trailing me and Durks, and by and by I come up behind him, and when I do I grip him where he won't make too much noise nor do me too much harm till I let him. He wasn't a very big chap, nor any too strong, and I sets him down on the nearest old tree trunk and—'What is it?' I asks.

"He looks at me and shakes his head and says, 'No sabby,' and I looks at him and I shakes my head and says: 'Oh, yes, you do, Johnnie Sing. I wasn't wearing any whiskers when I used to meet you in Wall-Eye Bunsen's place. I've cultivated them for protective purposes only, to hide my face but not my intelligence—so you just overlook them and try and recollect Alec Corning. Now what d' y' say?'

"'Halloo, Captain Corning!' he says; and, no pretending, he was glad to see me.

"'Whitely,' I says—'Bill Whitely when you say it out loud. What's your trouble, Johnnie?' And so you c'n all get it right, I ought to say first that Johnnie Sing was a sort of Americanized Chinaman, who the last time I'd seen him was inquiring if he couldn't become a real American some way. He'd been born in Lima on the West Coast, where there's a big colony o' Chinamen, and he was part Chinese, the rest of him Peruvian Indian. A Christian, too, he was; which I'm not putting up as being for or against him, except so you'll see he had as much right to be a Christian as anything else. His mother was Christian, and so it wasn't like as if he had turned against his own to get on in the world.

"Johnnie was a good sort, and he'd made a few dollars in the tea business, and so maybe ought to 'a' been happy. But he wasn't. There was an old Chinaman, and not too old either, who'd married a Finn woman came off a wrecked Norwegian bark. They ran a laundry together, and by'n'by they came on to Frisco and ran a laundry there. And Johnnie followed them. A good woman, and she died leaving a well-grown little girl, and by'n'by the old fellow he figures he's made enough and goes back to have a look at China. But no sooner there than he learns he won't live very long, and he writes Johnnie of it, or maybe it was the girl did, her and Johnnie having been always about three-quarters in love with each other. And Johnnie he cruises over to China, and the old fellow, savvying how things are, says all right, marry, and they get married, and he gives 'em his blessing and lays down and dies. A good old scout, Johnnie said, and I guess he was.

"Well, everything's fine, only Johnnie wants to come back and live in the United States, and the girl too. She was sixteen years old when she left California, and a woman's life in the United States looked a lot better to her than in this land of one-half her ancestors. So she and Johnnie takes a steamer to Vancouver, and they get there all right; but not till they got there did either of them happen to think that they were foreigners and barred as Chinese from coming into the United States. Which was a pity, they being pretty white and so strong for everything American. Anyway, Johnnie writes to Trumbull, my old boss, to see what he could do, and after ten days or so Durks happens along and bumps into Johnnie and is surprised as you please to see him, and Johnnie tells him his story, and Durks tells him not to worry about that—that he'd smuggle him and his wife across in a schooner he'd just bought. They would take a little coast steamer and meet her a few hours up the coast, and then across the sound to Seattle—'twould be the easiest thing ever you see.

"And there they were, Johnnie and his wife, and when he got that far in his story Johnnie stops and looks up at the sky most mournful-like. Springtime it was, mind you, and fine weather, with the sun shining and the waters of the inlet rolling up on the rocks gentle-like, and the first of the birds were up from the south and singing and chirping, and, I s'pose, nesting overhead—a bran'-new spring day in a piny grove on a pretty little island off the coast of British Columbia, when anybody should 'a' been happy, 'specially with a new young wife.

"'Well, what's wrong—what you so blue about?' I asks Johnnie when he'd got through squinting up the tree branches to the sky.

"And he tells me how after his wife was aboard the steamer which 'd brought 'em to this place she sees Durks and tells Johnnie how Durks came near kidnapping her one time—before she went back to China with her father. Her father and Durks had a terrible row over it. Her father near killed Durks with a hatchet. And now here was Durks turning up in this accidental way; too accidental altogether—for Durks. He would steal her or something, and once he got her into San Francisco they could be swallowed up with her. Huh—a Chinese row, the police would say, and not bother too much. Not like stealing an American girl. 'And if he gives me over to the police, I am not an American citizen—out of the country I must go,' winds up Johnnie.

"Terrible downcast is Johnnie Sing, but I stands him on his feet and tells him to cheer up. Durks was head of the expedition, yes, and paying the bills, yes; but me, Alec Corning, was skipper of the Hattie. 'Go down and tell your little wife that everything'll be all right,' says I—'that Alec Corning'll be on the job. Where is she?'

"'She is here,' he says, and whistles, and out from the brush steps a cute little girl dressed like a man, and with a hard hat to make her look all the more like a man. Johnnie lifted the little hat, and under it she has a lot of yellow-ash hair coiled up where a reg'lar Chinaman 'd have only a black pigtail.

"'Don't let on to Durks either of you ever saw me in your life,' I advises 'em, 'and when it's time to go aboard the vessel you go.'

"And they went aboard with what Durks says was bales of hemp; and we put out that night in open water, and next day threading inside passages so far as we could. Another night and another morning found us in Puget Sound, and there on a little neck of land on the American shore we hoisted our load of hemp onto a little, rough-made wooden pier. A narrow-gauge track ran up from the pier, and standing on the track was a hand flat car.

"'Now,' says Durks, 'I will pay off" these men, so they won't be hanging around and possibly talking too much before we get clear.' And he did—- ten dollars to the hands and fifteen to the cook, and a silver dollar all around for car-fare. And they went ashore, he telling them where they would find a little branch station about a mile up the road to take them to Seattle. And so we got through with them.

"He himself goes ashore after they're out the way, and stays an hour or so, and when he's back, 'How about paying off me and my mate now?' I asks.

"'You take the schooner to a little place west of here and then I'll pay you both off,' he answers.

"'And how about landing those two passengers?' I asks.

"'No, no, don't land them here,' he says. 'Somebody might see them and pounce on us for landing them. Keep them aboard for a while—to the next anchorage.'

"And we put out late in the morning then, and, there being no wind, 'twas in the middle of the afternoon before we came to anchor in a little harbor about five miles from where we landed the cargo. And we'd hardly been there when an American gunboat comes to anchor just off our hiding-place, and Archie and me we looks at each other, but don't say anything.

"And Durks? He's terribly surprised at the sight of the gunboat—terribly. By and by he stops walking the deck and says to me: 'I have a plan, captain. I will go aboard that gunboat and find out what they want here. If they think there is anything wrong about us, I will invite them to come aboard and look us over. What do you say to that?'

"I didn't say anything to it, but 'What will become of me and my wife—I paid you five hundred dollars for us?' pipes up Johnnie Sing.

"'Why'—and Durks smiles—'that is easy. You can hide—oh, where now? Why, of course, in the lazaretto. And your wife in a locker somewhere that Captain Corning will pick out for her. They will not look far, even if they shall suspect us—they will think we would have fifty or a hundred aboard or none at all. So they will not look into every corner. If you both hide away somewhere everything will be all right.'

"Johnnie is uneasy, but I nods my head to him on the sly, and he says all right and goes below with his wife. And making sure they are below, Durks turns to me and hands over five hundred to me, and to Archie two hundred dollars. And he shows us another five hundred and says: 'And this will be for you two to divide as you please when I get Johnnie Sing away from the ship and the girl is left behind. What do you say?'

"And I looks over at the five hundred and says, 'It looks pretty good'; and Archie he looks at me and at the extra money and says, 'It looks pretty good'; and Durks laughs and says, 'It will feel pretty good, too; but better put that money out of sight, hadn't you, captain—and you too, Mr. Gillis?' and goes off in the big quarter-boat—the only boat we had aboard, by the way.

"No sooner was he gone than up pops Johnnie Sing out of the cabin companionway. 'Captain,' he says, 'must I hide away?'

"Can you swim?'

"'A little bit.'

"'A little bit? Not enough. And your wife?'

"From over his shoulder she shook her head.

"'Then you can't swim ashore, can you? You got to stay aboard, that's plain. Well, you and your wife go with Mr. Gillis, who'll stow you in a place he knows under the forec's'le floor. Neither o' you bein' too tall or too fat, you c'n stow away in this place without smotherin' for an hour or two. We've used it before. Go by way of the cabin and through the hold below decks, so if anybody's got a glass on us from the gunboat they won't see you.'

"And they went, she crawling behind him like a little mouse. And Archie tucked 'em away and comes on deck, looking at his money as he comes—two one-hundred-dollar bills. 'Tuck it out o' sight!' Archie was sayin'—'tuck it out o' sight, hah?' And the more he looks the more doubtful he becomes, and I looks at mine, and I get a magnifyin' glass from my dunnage to have a closer look, and sure enough it's the phony kind of money men like Durks used sometimes to pass off on unsuspecting Chinks on that coast. 'Johnnie Sing tips me off about it just now,' explains Archie to me.

"And while we're swearing at Durks for that, back he comes with a young officer and four armed sailors. The officer looks at me and says: 'You have contraband Chinamen aboard here?'

"Well, that got me. I looks at him, and then, thinking of the phony money, I looks at Durks. And I don't answer.

"'We shall have to search the ship,' says the officer.

"'Sure,' I says, 'search away.'

"And they went and dropped straight into the cabin and made for the lazaretto, Durks waiting and whistling to himself on deck. Pretty soon the officer comes up and reports nobody in the lazaretto. Durks goes up in the air. 'Where is he?' he says to me.

"'He? Who?'

"'Johnnie Sing.'

"'What you talkin' about?' I asks, and at the same time Archie carelessly hauls out a hundred-dollar bill and lights a cigarette with it. And Durks suddenly changes, and with the officer's permission steps with me into the cabin. And the first thing he does is to count out seven hundred dollars good money and hand it to me. 'I took that other from the wrong pile,' he says, and smiles, but not as if he expects to be believed. And he holds out another five hundred—good money—and says, 'Where are they?' And I looks wise and says, 'Suppose that Chink gave me a thousand to get 'em clear?' 'A thousand? Well, here—here's a thousand when you turn him over to me. Where are they?'

"And I whispered, so the lockers themselves couldn't hear me: 'They swam ashore and are hid away. To-morrow morning I give them the signal and they'll come back aboard.'

"'Then,' says Durks, 'you can get his five hundred and my thousand. Will that satisfy you?'

"And I said I'd think it over, and we went on deck, where Durks told the officer there might be a way to get hold of the contraband Chinamen yet. And the officer eyes us both and finally says: 'You'd better both come with me to the ship and make it clear to the captain. He is now up the Sound, but will be aboard in the morning. And we went, leaving Archie to look after the vessel.

"We went aboard the gunboat, not exactly under guard, but just so's to be sure we'd be there when we were wanted. It was now getting on toward six o'clock, and the first thing meal call blew, and up steps an old shipmate, Ed Gurney, and invites me down to the chief petty officers' mess for supper.

"Ed and me we'd been snapper-fishing together in the Gulf o' Mexico, on the Campeche Bank, in one of those little short bowsprit schooners out o' Pensacola, and now he was high-line marksman of the ship, wore extra marks on his sleeve and got extra money, and all that kind o' stuff, for his shooting. Well, Ed always could tell an oil-tanker from a banana steamer as far as any man in the Gulf, and we talked of those days during supper, and after we'd had a good smoke we walked the deck together, talking of one thing and another, and before I got through I told him all about the scrape I was in.

"'The grab-all snake!' says Ed. 'And what you goin' to do, Alec?'

"'My name is Bill,' I answers; 'Bill Whitely if there's anybody likely to be in hearing. But I tell you, Ed,' I says, 'I don't like the notion o' little Johnnie Sing and his wife getting caught—or separated.'

"We were looking over the side then, where to the boom was tied a string of small boats, our big quarter-boat to the end.

"'What do you know about this fellow Durks, Ed?' I said, after a time.

"'Nothing,' he said, 'except that he's under suspicion of smuggling opium for a long time. They say he's money-mad and woman-mad, and always was.'

"'So I've heard. And what's his game here with me?'

"'It's going around the ship that you ran away with his schooner and smuggled a Chink aboard unbeknownst, but that he's going to forgive you if you hand over the Chinaman and so put him right with the Gover'ment. He didn't say anything about any woman.'

"'He's one fine gentleman,' I says. And, by 'n' by: 'Suppose you saw somebody was trying to slip the Hattie—the Pioneer—out by you in the dark, what would happen?'

"'Happen?' says Ed. 'A lot o' things. And quick. It'd be up with a lot of three-inch ammunition, and some high-rating gun pointer, who's as likely to be me as anybody else, would probably have to use you for a little target practice.'

"'And you c'n lay 'em pretty close aboard, can't you, Ed—strings o' bull's-eyes at six and eight and ten thousand yards—hah?'

"'I have landed 'em as close as that,' says Ed.

"'But an old shipmate, Ed?' I says.

"'Now, Alec——'

"'Bill—Bill Whitely,' I says.

"'Well, Bill Whitely, then, though you'd better let me call you Alec. I think I'd shoot a bit wider thinking of Alec Corning than anybody named Bill Whitely. If you don't leave me any other way out of it, I'd maybe keep scraping the paint off you as long as I could.'

"'Your idea bein' to do the right thing by the Gover'ment in the end, Ed?'

"'That's it,' says Ed.

"'Well, Ed,' I says, 'if you should happen to see such a thing as a moving picture of the Hattie stealin' out to sea, and it's up to you to bring her to, say at five or six or eight thousand yards, just scrape the paint with the first two or three, will you, by way o' telling me how it's you, Ed?'

"'All right,' says Ed.

"'And we shook hands over that. 'And maybe the Gover'ment won't be losing anything at that,' I says.

"After a time Ed Gurney left me to go on the night watch, and I was standing by the rail, figuring how I was going to get back to the Hattie, when Durks comes looking for me.

"'Of course,' says Durks, 'you had no idea of it, but I organized this expedition as much to get Johnnie Sing out of the way and separate him from his wife as to smuggle in the cargo of hemp.'

"'The duty on hemp,' I interrupts, 'must be very high, Mr. Durks.'

"'What? It is—yes,' he says.

"'And how much is the duty on hemp?' I asks.

"And he don't know. 'Hemp, humph!' I says, 'how much is the duty on—?' and I stops.

"'On what?' he says.

"'On whatever's in those bales?' I answers.

"'Why, what is the duty?' he asks.

"Maybe there's no duty—maybe it's against the law to bring it in, no matter what the duty,' I answers.

"And he sees I know too much, and from out of a pocket inside his vest he draws a package of money and lets me look to see how much, and he says: 'Five hundred now and five hundred when you turn over to me Johnnie Sing—separate from his wife.'

"'If I could get back on the schooner,' I says, like I was studying it out, 'back on her to-night, I'd guarantee I'd have Johnnie Sing aboard her in the morning.'

"'But how can you get off this ship?' he says.

"'Easy enough,' I says. 'Nobody here cares whether I stay aboard or get away, and nobody's watching me too close. You ask the executive officer's permission to go down aboard your quarter-boat, swinging from the boom there, by way of seeing it's all right, and you get into it and look it over, and the last thing you do before leaving it you unfasten the painter and let her go adrift. And in the morning, when you see the Hattie, Johnnie Sing and his wife will be aboard—- on her deck in plain sight. And then you come and get 'em. But you'll have to come and get 'em yourself—and give me five hundred dollars now on account—good money, mind.' And he does—good money.

"And while he's going down over the boom ladder to one side I'm climbing down a side ladder on the other, and soon standing on the last rung, just above the water-line, and waiting. And pretty soon I see the shadow of our quarter-boat drifting past her stern, and as I do I slips overboard and strikes out for her, quiet and mostly under water, because I had my clothes on.

"I get aboard the quarter-boat and I let her drift till maybe I am a quarter of a mile away, and then I out oars and heads her in for where I can see the Hattie's riding light. I comes alongside. Archie's shape looms up over the rail. 'Hi-i!' he yells, 'keep off!' 'It's all right, Archie,' I says, and he reaches down and takes the painter. 'What's doing?' he says.

"'Where's Johnnie Sing and his wife?'

"'She's asleep in the cabin and he's awake watching her. What you going to do?'

"'You tell Johnnie here's his five hundred passage money back, will you, Archie? And then we'll make ready to skip out of here.'

"'Skip out? Not enough wind,' says Archie.

"'Not now,' I says, 'but there will be.'

"'I hope so,' says Archie, and calls Johnnie and tells him, and I gives him his money which he didn't want to take but had to and we slip her chain cable but left her riding light on a buoy in case the gunboat watch were having an eye on her. 'And now,' I says, 'to that lighter where those bales of hemp are.'

"'Hadn't we better put straight for the open sound and head to sea,' says Archie, 'while it's dark? What do we want with a lot o' hemp?' growls Archie.

"'We'll go after the hemp, all the same, Archie,' I says.

"It took us three hours from our anchorage to make the lighter, where the hemp was, and that made it midnight. We let the schooner drift a couple of hundred yards off the little pier, and Archie and me paddled ashore in our quarter-boat with a spare lantern.

"There was the lighter, but no bales of hemp. Up on the pier, about two hundred yards, we see a streak of light. We crept up to that, and through a pane of glass high up—me standing on Archie's shoulders to get a look through—was four men playing cards, with money and a bottle of whiskey and a kerosene lamp on the table. We looked around. On the narrow-gauge railroad track we found the little flat hand-car, and on that, under a tarpaulin, were the bales of hemp.

"We crept around to the door of the shack. By feeling we saw it opened out; so the two of us felt around for big-sized stones, a hundred pounds apiece, or so, and them we piled in front of the door, fifteen or twenty of 'em, very softly, and then I whispers to Archie to hustle the flat car along to the pier.

"And he did, but in getting started the car wheels grinded a little, and somebody inside yells, 'What's that!' and again, 'Listen!' and then I could hear one of 'em jumping up and cursing and swearing: 'What started her?' Next thing somebody rattled the door-latch and pushed. And pushed again. And then—bam! his whole weight against the door. The top part springs out, but the bottom half sticks.

"Then there was a quiet, and then somebody said something quick, and I could hear 'em all jumping up and yelling out, and they came piling bang-up for the door and slammed against it, but the big stones held 'em. Then they stopped, and one of 'em says: 'We're locked in all right.' 'Yes,' I calls out, 'and you'd better stay locked in, for the first man, and the second man, and the third man comes out the door he gets his. And now, men,' I calls out, 'keep that door covered and cut loose if it's knocked open.' And then I hurried after Archie's lantern, which I see is now to the pier.

"It didn't take us more than a couple o' minutes to pitch those little bales off that car, tote 'em across the lighter and drop 'em into our quarter-boat. Then we rowed out to our vessel and threw them over the rail and let 'em lay there amidships till we could get a chance to rip 'em open and see what we got.

"It was then two o'clock, and 's by this time the breeze'd made a bit, I was hoping we'd slip by the gunboat before daylight. And we did—almost; but not far enough by. Before the sun was fair up they saw us and puts after us. It took her a few minutes to get under way and steam up on her, and then she came a-belting. Twelve knots she was probably steaming, but by now the breeze was strong enough for the Hattie to hold her own, but not to draw away. And soon the breeze comes stronger, and we begin to lengthen and draw away from the gunboat. And it breezed up more, and the Hattie, balloon and stays'l on now, and taking it over her quarter, was beginning to show the stuff in her.

"She was lifting her forefoot and kicking her way through like she knew what we wanted. We were walking away from the gunboat, and I was wondering why she didn't reach out for us with one of her long five-inch lads. But I see why pretty soon. In the clearing light a point of land shows up ahead of us, making out maybe a couple of miles to the windward of our course. We couldn't turn out, for here was the main shore and there was the gunboat. 'And a pity, too,' I says to Archie, 'with enough opium aboard to keep us many a year.'

"Archie'd 'most forgot the bales. 'Cut 'em open,' I says to him, and he did, and out they come—six or eight pound tins they looked—dozens of 'em. And Archie, looking at the bright shiny tins, said, 'What a pity!' again, and we both said what a pity it was, too, for Johnnie Sing and his wife. 'But don't you worry about 'em,' I says; 'Nor you about your wife,' I says to Johnnie, who was looking heart-broken, with his arm around her.

"All the time we were hopping on toward the point, and if 'twas anything but a steamer with guns was chasing us we'd 'a' squeezed by, and, once by, it was good night to the gunboat or anything like her in that breeze. It looked that way even as it was, till a shell goes skipping across the water ahead of us. In half a minute there came another one astern. There wasn't any sea on this time—inshore this and the water smooth, and the two shells had a fine chance to show how they could pile up little hills of water and then go skipping across the surface, making quarter circles to the right. I had hopes, a few hopes yet. For the wind was still there, and the Hattie she had everything on her, and she was pirooting 'tween earth and sky like a picnic swing. And looking out in terror was Johnnie Sing's little wife, and I was saying to her: 'She's all right—she'll stay up, never fear.'

"'Oh, she'll stay up,' says Archie, 'if one of them shells don't come aboard,' and we both eying a flash o' flame that just then came out the side of the gunboat.

"'They're only fourteen-pounders,' I says.

"'Is that all?' says Archie. 'Only fourteen pounds o' nitroglycerine, or cordite, or dynamite, or guncotton, or whatever 'tis they packs into 'em! Only fourteen pounds!—and fourteen ounces is enough to send the Hattie to the clouds and eternal glory if ever it comes aboard,' and just then one came right under her forefoot and another under her counter. And I looks back to the gunboat. She's less than a mile away now, and I takes the glasses and has a peek, and I imagines I sees a tall, rangy lad standing beside a long, slim, steel-shiny, needle-lookin' gun, and I says to myself: 'Eddie boy, you miss us about twice more and Alec Corning'll be buying you more than one drink next time we meet,' for I knew the end was near. Ahead of me I see a passage making an island of the last half mile o' that point o' land, and it looked like water enough in the passage to let the Hattie through.

"I calls out to Archie and tells him to heave the tins of opium into the quarter-boat, and he did, and 'Now get into her,' I says, 'and pull for the beach.' And they did, me staying aboard the Hattie to luff her for them to get away. And then I cut the stays'l free and gave the Hattie her wheel again, and when she was going full-tilt I jibed her over, and she had everything on, and it was blowing blue devils, and only one thing you'd think could happen after that long main-boom went swinging across her deck—over the side had to go her spars. But they didn't. A twenty-two-inch forem'st she carried, a great stick, and when she was away again and going straight for the passage I says to myself: 'You'll have to hurry, Ed Gurney, or I'll be beating you to it!' For after all, when you're put to it, Durks or no Durks, there's only one thing to do—try and save your vessel.



"The Hattie rushes straight for the passage, and I thought maybe she'd make it, when whing! whing! whing! you'd think somebody was trying to cut his initials in the water around her. One after the other, like somebody having fun with her, and then wr-r-t! I felt her shiver, and then she seemed to shake herself, and then straight into the air her bowsprit seemed to rise and point to the morning sky, and from out of her waist came flame and smoke. Straight on and up the bowsprit went, and down! and plump! her after-part went! and flying junks of one thing and another filled the air, and some smoke, and then in the sea around the small parts that'd blown up began to fall. But I wasn't watching them. I was watching the for'ard half of her as it went pitching up, the bowsprit making a quarter circle in the air, and then plunk! down and under. The great little Hattie was gone. By that time I was in the water reaching out for the quarter-boat.

"'Too bad,' says Archie, 'too bad!' when I was safe in her. 'Too bad!' he says, and stops rowing. 'Pull, you sentimental loafer; pull for the beach!' I yells at him.

"And he did, and we all did—all but Johnnie's wife—and landed, and ran up and hid in the brush up top of the cliff, and lay on our stomachs watching the gunboat come stealing in and put off a steam-barge and grab our quarter-boat with all the opium in it. And we could hear Ed Gurney whoop when he held a tin of it aloft. 'Man, tons of it, tons of it!' Archie swore he could hear Ed yelling, and we guessed that would square him for those few wide shots. And then they headed back and went aboard the gunboat, and pretty soon she steamed off.

"'Vessel and opium both gone—I wonder how Durks is feeling now,' says Archie; 'and we with his—but how much is it altogether, Alec?' And that reminded me, and I says to Archie, 'Where'd you leave your two hundred dollars?' and he stops and swears. He'd left it under his mattress in the cabin of the Hattie. And I'd left my five hundred hanging up in my coat in the cabin of the Hattie, and there she was in ten fathom of water. I broke the news to Archie.

"Archie said he'd be damned. Then: 'How'll we get out of here? For we gotta go east after this, Alec.'

"And Johnnie Sing, listening, takes the five hundred I'd given him and hands it to me. I don't want to take it, and he says, 'Plenty more—see,' and with his jackknife begins opening the wadding of his coat, and out come bills and bills and bills. All his property, twenty-odd thousand dollars, was sewed up there in big bills. And when 'twas all out he offers it to us, telling us to help ourselves. And Archie and me said no, the five hundred would do us to pay our way back to Gloucester here, and meals on the way, o' course. And Johnnie, by our advice, he comes east, too, with his little wife, and stepped off in New York; and that's where we left him.

"A fine little team, Johnnie and his wife. And the Hattie? If there's any of you never seen her, then you ought to when she was alive. A great little vessel, the Hattie Rennish!"



KILLORIN'S CARIBBEAN DAYS

Revolutions? These days? In those South American countries? Sh-h, boy, sh-h—you don't know. In th' old gunboat days in the Caribbeans we never called it a good week 'nless we suppressed three or four. And at that I think we used to miss some.

Believe me, son, those were the days when they knew how to revolutionize. You'd turn in of a night with the Blues or the Reds or Greens, in, and have breakfast maybe in the mornin' with the Purples or the Violets and brass bands celebratin' the vict'ry in the Palace square.

And the first thing every new party did when they got in was to start up the Bureau of Printin' 'nd Engravin' and roll off a few billion dollars of gover'ment money. In Guadalquique the money for all parties was the same, except each party used to rubber-stamp its name across the face. An old navy yeoman hit the beach there one time named Tommie Anderson and he was made chief of the Bureau o' Printin' 'nd Engravin' by the Greens because he could make a rubber hand-stamp while they waited. Some traitor who didn't get his 'd absconded with the 'ficial one, Tommie said.

Of course that kind o' work tends to debilitate the best kind o' money. In Almatara, which was one o' the best little revolutionary countries ever I struck, you could see nigger boot-blacks shootin' crap for two or three thousand dollars a throw of a holiday in the market square. It used to cost a thousand dollars for a shine—that's a first-class shine for a foreigner, I mean. The natives didn't have to pay that much.

Yes sir, son, a great old cruisin'-ground in the old days, the Caribbeans, and fine times there, believe me. In the old Hiawatha we'd be layin' in to Kingston, or Havana, or Matanzas, or some port along there, with big liberty parties ashore every day, when word 'd come from Washington tellin' us there was hell to pay over to Guadalquique, or Almatara, or somewhere else, and for us to beat it over there and sit on 'em before they got going.

The Hiawatha she was a good old gunboat ratin' four fourteen and two six-pounders, and, bein' the handiest thing in the fleet, 'twas always her they detailed for those little revolutionary jobs, and aboard her we got so, after a while, we didn't mind the report of a new revolution any more 'n you'd mind the ringin' of the cash-register in a barroom up here. Sometimes you'd see the skipper showin' signs of impatience, rumplin' his hair and rubbin' his chin and maybe cussin' a little; but he always ended by hurryin' a patrol party ashore, and we'd beat up the grog-shops 'n' the dance-halls and the park benches and hustle everybody aboard, and the chief engineer he'd rouse out a couple of extra stokers, and up steam and away we'd go.

Foolish things—revolutions? Maybe. But people who say no good can come out o' revolutions, they don't know. I got rank an' fortune out of a revolution one time. Yes, sir, me, Killorin, bosun's mate, second class, U.S.N. and on my first Caribbean cruise it was, and—but I'll get to the rest of it. When I was drafted to the Hiawatha on the Caribbean station I had what you might call only a virgin notion of revolutions. My first enlistment was 'most run out, and I was looking to be put aboard some home-bound ship, but I was still on the Hiawatha when she was told to jog along over to Tangarine, a bustling young republic which was beginnin' to make a name for itself in the revolutionary way.

Whatever they were doin' we were to stop it. That was the Monroe Doctrine, the officers said. And so we put over there, but we didn't stop it. It was all over, with the Reds in an' printin' new money and postage-stamps and makin' a bluff to collect customs fine as could be when we got there.

There was nothin' to keep us there, but it was a fruitful-lookin' country and the skipper he thought he might 's well get a little fresh grub for his mess, and he sends me ashore to do the buyin'. And I goes. And the first grocery store I come to I says to the man behind the counter: "How much for a ham?" And he says, quick and brisk, "Four thousand dollars," and I was most stunned, but I manages to slap a five-dollar gold piece down on the counter and I says, quick and brisk too: "In God's name gimme a bite out of it!" An' I had to hire two coolies to wheel the change back to the ship.

Well, the money values of that Tangarine place had me mesmerized, and when my time ran out a few weeks later I settles up with the paymaster and stands by to go over the side with my bag. The skipper he says: "Killorin, I'll be over here by'n'by and take you off. And you'll be glad to come, I'll wager." And I says, "Thank you, sir, but this is the dolsee far nanity country for me. With the number o' gold pieces I got in my pants pocket I oughter be able to pass the rest o' my days here," and with my big ticket and my bag I hit the beach in Tangarine, intendin' to go straight to the palace and get chummy with the new President first thing.

But I never got so far as the palace. Not that time. About a quarter-mile up from the beach was a joyous-lookin' hotel with shaded verandas all 'round and a banana grove in the yard, and on a second look a cantina shinin' with mirrors and glasses and colored bottles on the ground floor, and on another look spacious-lookin' suites o' rooms such as were befittin' to senors of wealth and leisure on the floor above. And over these premises I cast one sailor-like view, and through the for'ard gangway of that glass-mounted cantina I hove my clothes-bag and myself followed after. There was also a roulette wheel, which didn't hurt the looks of the place either.

I felt so right to home that I anchored right there—oh, three or four or five or six days; maybe it was two weeks; but anyway—all that don't matter—when I steadied down so's to reason like the man o' sense my skipper always used to say I was at bottom, I was down on the beach and it was early in the mornin', and I was watchin' a lemon-colored sun trying to rise out of the smooth Caribbean sea, and I was wonderin' where it was I'd mislaid my clothes-bag. I could account for everythin' but my clothes-bag. But that don't matter either now. I never saw it again.

And while I sat there, not feelin' just like a high-score gun-captain after target-practice, I hears a light step behind me, and pretty soon I could feel an eye looking me over, and by'n'by a voice said: "A ver-ry fine good morning, sir."

"Is it?" I says, and I looks up to see who the cheerful party is. And there was a good-lookin', well-dressed, young, dark-complected chap, with a little bamboo cane which he kept stickin' into the sand.

And he looks at me again and says, plainly pleased and yet a little sad, too: "The Blues are in." And I says: "That so? Since when?" And he says: "Since last nigh-it. You did not hear, the revoloo-shee-onn?"

And I says: "I didn't—I must 'a' been takin' a nap." But I guessed it was a good thing; leastways they couldn't be any worse than the Reds—or was it the Yellow chaps were in last?

"No Yellow in Tangarine," he says.

"Ha, ha!" I says—"an authority."

"No Yellow—Blues and Reds only. And as for the Reds, bah! But the Blues, good—ver-ry good," and he pulls the cane out of the sand, lunges at the air, comes to a present, and says: "I salute you, sir." And I said: "And I al-so salute you, senor." And he says: "Americano?" And I said: "You betcher." And he said: "Of course. Ver-ry good. I have been one time in your country. I have studied the langooage there, yes. Ver-ry fine, ver-ry fine. All American people ver-ry fine. All heroes. Yes, yes, I think so. I have read it also in your books. But par-don, sir, what is it you do now?"

And I said I wasn't doing anything except makin' up my mind whether I'd go back to the navy or not, and if I did, how I'd get back.

"Ah-h, man-o'-war-man. I have thought so. You sail ship—navigate, yes?" And I said I didn't know about navigatin', but I could sail a ship if I had to.

"I have thought so," he says. "Listen, please. While you—compose, is it not?—your brains, should you not wish to engage in privateerin'? It is ver-ry good wonderful opportune time now for that, while the Blues are in control and the Reds who are on the ocean know not of it."

"H'm, we kind o' lost the privateerin' habit in our country. How do you do it these days?" I says.

"Oh-h, sir, ver-ry sim-ple, ver-ry. My friend he is in the Blue cabinet. A fine man, yes. He shall make for me all the privateerin' documents I shall require. It is necessary only to request respectfully of him. Then we shall engage a small ship and you shall navigate her, and when we shall perceive other ships, the same who shall display the Red flag, we shall display suddenly a Blue flag on our ship and capture them."

"And loot 'em?"

"Par-don, sir," says he, "but what is that lootem?"

"Why, whatever's in the ships we capture. Don't we get everythin' we c'n find in 'em?"

"Oh, sir, of a surely, abso-lutely. It is the article of war. But"—he holds up a finger warnin'like—"as commander of the expedition I shall reserve to myself one article of any kind which shall be captured. One chest, one table, even"—he looked at me to see if I got this part—"even one prisoner, if I shall so desire."

"Well, that's all right, too," I said; "for I s'pose you're payin' for the outfittin' o' this expedition?" And he says he was. "Then it's a go," I says; "for I don't see but I might 's well be privateerin' an' pickin' up a little loose loot as lyin' around on the beach wonderin' where my eats are comin' from f'r the next few weeks."

So he brings me around and shows me a little brigantine, he'd chartered, and with three dusky lads for a crew and some grub and two big chests on her quarter-deck we sail out. And the first thing I says when we were clear o' the harbor was: "What's them chests for?" And he opens up one of 'em and says: "Behold, senor, your uniform!"

And I looks and there's five gold stripes on the sleeve of the coat to begin with. And draws it all out, pants and all, and I see it's an admiral's special full-dress uniform!

"For me?" I says.

"Certain-ly," he says. "You, senor, shall be an admiral. Why not?"

"Well," I says, "I don' know why not either, only it's some rank to start with. But what'll you be?" And at that he opens up the other chest and hauls out another uniform and holds it up f'r me to look at, and, pointin' to the insignia, he asks: "What rank shall such be?"

It was a general's uniform, and I tells him so.

"So?" he says. Then bowing to me: "Then I, senor, if you do not object, shall be a gen'ral."

"Sure—why not, senor?" I says. "And there's cert'nly some class to the quarter-deck o' this brigantine. Let's get into 'em." And we got into 'em, an' gorgeous, oh, gorgeous, they were. An' rememberin' the market price o' hams when I was buyin' hams, I figured they must 'a' cost ten or fifteen million dollars apiece. And I hadn't been an hour in mine—solid gold almost, and a gold-mounted shappo and a gold belt and a dazzlin' sword—before I begins to appreciate what it was to be an admiral and to respect every admiral ever I'd sailed under—except maybe two or three—for bein' good enough to look at me at all while they were standing round deck in their uniforms. An' f'r the next hour I kept that crew hoppin' from one end of the brigantine to the other, just to see 'em hop when I gives an order with my admiral's uniform on.

But after I got so I could take off my shappo and draw my sword and look down at myself without swellin' up, I says to the gen'ral, "What d'y'say, senor gen'ral, to a little action?" and points to a lad quarterin' down the wind toward us with a Red flag up. "It's plain," I says, "he don't know the Blues is in. What d'y'say if we shake him up same as a real privateer—send a hot shot across his forefoot and make him haul his wind?"

"No, no," and the gen'ral shakes his head.

And soon there came another fellow inbound and with a Red flag up, but again the gen'ral said, "Paysheeons, paysheeons, senor admiral," and raises one hand to restrain my impulsive motions.

And four or five more passed, all flyin' the Red flag. But no word from the gen'ral until toward the middle of the afternoon—and a hot afternoon it was. The gen'ral, with the glasses to his eyes, bounces into the air. "Ah-h!" and again, "Ah-h!" and points to her. "Now the fair prize-a, the rich prize-a!" he says, and draws deep breaths, and cinches up on his belt, and runs his fingers between his red and green and yellow gold-mounted collar and his neck, and runs below and takes a last look at himself in the mirror, and comes runnin' up on deck and calls out: "Senor admiral, you shall prepare the ship for combat!"