Author: Cutcliffe Hyne
Date: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Short stories
Description: C J Cutcliffe Hyne has told stories of life in the fin-de-siecle tramp steamer business from the view of a captain (Kettle); an engineer (McTodd); and now from the points of view of three men from the stokehold: "Adventurers Three, Fairfield, Clydebank and Rakes." These very short stories were published in many newspapers of the time, but not, so far as I know, ever collected. "And Other Stories" holds all the remaining Cutcliffe Hyne short stories I could find in Australian newspapers through the Australian National Library's on-line resource Trove. This collection is unique to MobileRead For

ADVENTURERS THREE

Fairfield, Clydebank, and Rakes

and other stories

C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne

2020

Contents

Adventurers Three

1: Yellow Jack House in Vera Cruz

2: The Roulette Lady in Hull.

3: Mrs. Davidson and P.P.I.

4: The Boiled Fishhouse In Marseilles

5: Crossing The Bar At Tampico

6: The Pirate Syndicate In  New York

7: The Sandbaggers In Liverpool

8: The Squint-Eyed Crimp At Las Palmas

9: The Yacht Repairing Slip at Glasgow

10: The Matter Of The Half Camel in Mogador

11: The Trawler's Shell Chest in Fleetwood

12: The Bastinado in Algiers

13: The Lady in the Sack at Plymouth

14: The Stuffed Sunfish at Genoa

And Other Stories

15: The Gray Hair

16: Guaranteed Countess

17: In Memoriam

18: The Salvage Hunter

19: The King Diamond

20: Run Down

21: The Race

22: The Mine Layer

23: The Colonel

24: A Baptism Of Fire

25: The Holder of the Spoil

26: Christmas 1837 - 2037

________________

Adventurers Three

Fairfield, Clydebank, and Rakes

1: Yellow Jack House in Vera Cruz.

Observer (Adelaide) 30 April 1910

IT WAS in Vera Cruz, in the street that runs south from the customs house towards the old fort, that first they met. Fairfield, an Englishman, had come there in the Liverpool Leyland boat as a fireman. Clydebank, the Scot, who held papers, said that he had just thrown up his ticket as fourth engineer on the Hamburg-Amerika Kronprinzessin Cecile, but (when it came to a question of wages received) presently owned that he had also been in the stokehold. Rakes, the Yankee, made no bones about owning up that he had been rated as a coal trimmer on a South American tramp that had blown in from Paramaribo. But as an excuse for the low rating he pointed out that he had overstayed his credit in a Bowery boarding house, and had been shanghaied on board the first hard case ship that sailed.

As regards capital, they had among them 3/4d English, four dollars of assorted South American coinages, and a United States dime, and by the time these had been passed across the grimy counter of a pulqueria which advertised "Money change near," they received, in addition to three tumblers of sour, evil-smelling pulque, the exact sum of three dollars and 95 cents.

In Mexican currency.

"That son of a ruin," said Bakes, indicating the proprietor of the pulque shop, "has done us to the tune of about 35 per cent, over this exchange."

"Probably,' said Clydebank. "That's their custom. In the meanwhile this struck-by-lightning ginger beer is giving me a touch of that tired feeling just where ma' watch chain used to be before uncle took it, and what I want to find is a whiskey joint where we can blow the rest of the cash."

"Away with you, then," said the Englishman. "I've never been in Vera Cruz before, and I'm off to give the girls a treat. A joker in our forecastle told me they were top notchers."

It was Fairfield who got the party into their scrape. Fairfield was good-looking, upstanding, and even in engine-room dungaree looked spruce. It always struck me that he had been born of gentle folk, although he never lapsed into the indiscretion of speaking about his birth. And certainly he'd quite a way with him when he was with the other sex.

When they foregathered again under the sizzling electrics in the main plaza Fairfield introduced to his friends the Señorita Dionysia Ortiz.

Miss Ortiz spoke Mexican Spanish and seaport English with equal fluency,  but it seemed to Clydebank that her affection for Fairfield was a trifle too warm to be altogether wholesome. He mentioned this, the good-looking Englishman retorted by calling him jealous.

"I'm no' jealous," said Clydebank. "But carry wi' me some caution when I'm sober. Man, yon local substitute for whisky's fearsome stuff. They call it mescal, and they distil it from the roots of aloe plants. Old it tastes like the bad bits in Hollands gin. I'm soberer this minute than I was when I stepped ashore, and far more full of caution. Just be guided. Miss there is after robbing yon."

The lady, who was listening, replied to this with point, but Fairfield clapped an arm round her, and kissed her to silence, and then made explanation. Miss Ortiz could not be after robbing, he said, as they were only three stoney broke firemen without a chest between them. Besides her offer was openness itself. Her brother it seemed, ran a couple of sailors' boarding houses. He had made money, and wanted by degrees to retire: and as a start wished to transfer one of the houses from his immediate management.

"I thought," said Dionysia. "your mens would find the job too tough, The Yank doesn't think he's any use for it― and Scottie's turned it down already."

"I'd like you to point out right here, carita, when  the dollars come in." said

"Dollars might sway ma' judgment," said Clydebank judicially.

"You pair of coal-grimed lunkheads," retorted the lady politely. "If you'll only save up your nasty breath till I've had time to talk, you'd have heard that."

"Certainly," said Fairfield. "Let my sweetheart wag her pretty tongue, you jokers." And he swung her on to his knee, and explained the situation himself before she could get another word out.

They were to take over the boarding house, lock, stock, and barrel, bar, bunkroom, and dope, that very night. They were not to pay one centavo for entry. If they made no profit they were to pay nothing. But if they did make profit, then they were to pay out 25 per cent, weekly till señor Ortiz was in possession of $200 Mexican currency, after which the boarding house, with its goodwill, and all that was therein, was to be theirs.

"Gee whiskers!" said the Scot.

"Ortiz' boarding house next that out-of work church they've turned into a soft-goods store, is it?" asked Rakes.

"That's the one."

"Why, the stuff in it must he worth nearer $2,000 than $200."

"Guess if Dionysia's brother wishes to let go," said Fairfield, "that's no concern of ours. My dear, it's worth being three weeks at sea to come across a cheek as smooth and silky as yours."

"You've kissed me enough," said the Señorita. "Is this a deal?"

"We'll have a poll," said Fairfield solemnly. "For? Against?" And after the show of hands declared that the Ayes had it by one vote. "But Sandy'll come along all the same."

"Aye," said the Scot, "but I wished to register my protest."

Forthwith nothing would satisfy the lady,  but that they should start off there and then to take possession. And as she proceeded to crack a bottle to wish them luck,

They fell in with the proposition readily enough. Ortiz himself— a truculent-looking Mexican, with a foot of revolver barrel sticking out below his waistbelt— received them. He deserted a bar-full of customers, and took them to an inner room to do them special honour. He brought Scotch whisky, of a well-known New York brand, and they scalded their interiors to the extent of a tumbler-full apiece, and Fairfield rode Dionysia on his knee. Only the Scotsman glowered.

"To show that I mean fair," said Ortiz, "here is a deed making transfer of the boarding-house,  with its beds, stores, liquors, and goodwill, from me to yourselves. Sign and I'll congratulate you on possession and leave you in full charge."

"Give me your stylograph," said Fairfield.

"Not on your life," said the Yankee. "Let me read the document first. You may not think it. but once I was an attorney."

"Till you bolted with your client's cash, eh? Read away if it pleases you."

So Rakes read, and presently reported the transfer in full order. So he and Fairfield signed, and after some show of reluctance Clydebank signed also.

"There's a take-in somewhere," said the Scot. " 'Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes,' which may be translated for unlettered coal-heavers. I hae ma' doots about Dagos when they're ower generous.' But there's whisky in the house, and I'll never desert that— and you."

They had certainly looked to Señor Ortiz and his sister to show them over the establishment, and make introductions in the -bar, but once the transfer had been signed these two Mexican worthies showed nothing but haste to be gone. The agreement, they said, must, by Mexican law, be stamped by the Jefe Politico; they would attend to that at once, and return. But their exit struck the new owners as hurried.

However, the three were too much impressed with their luck to stick at trifles, and went forthwith down to the bar to make introductions for themselves. But here came the first of a series of surprises. Except for n dozen seared looking men who peered in through the door and window, there was not a sign of-life about the place, and at their appearance the scared ones departed at the run, without explanation.

"Queer go," said the Englishman.

"Plant somewhere," said the American,

"Let's examine the till."

"I'll bring a libel action," coughed the Scot, "against the plumber that made this whisky, for misnaming it Scotch. Let's go upstairs, and see if there are any lodgers in possession."

They went through the place, and made thorough search. The house appeared to have been pretty thoroughly stripped; two rooms alone held the rags of furniture. and in each of these was a man who tossed and groaned under bedclothes.  To the ordinary observer all this would have been full of suspicion; but the three were tough steamers' firemen well used to the vagaries of their kind ashore, and the place was a rough Vera Cruz sailors' boarding home,  where all kinds of drugging and outrage were possible. So they took the thing philosophically, retired once more to the bar, and set about discovering which was the least pernicious of the liquors on the shelves, 'by the process of tasting and elimination.

They ate nothing in that house, drank nothing except from bottles, and brought to it constitutions toughened by recent long doses of sea air, and, as a consequence, they suffered in no way from the horrible dangers which it contained. The police raided them about midnight— police, end doctors, and linen-clad men who reeked of disinfectants. With the fireman's dislike for shore authority, the sudden awakening, and the surprise of the situation, they were naturally ready for a fight, lifted up chairs and stools, and stood on the ugly defensive; the police, filled with score sit their errand, were itching for a chance to shoot; and but for the flutter of chance there would have been tragedy. But the Scot cooled when he found himself looking down a long revolver barrel.

"Before ye do murder, name your charge."

"You've an outbreak of yellow fever here," said the police doctor, "and you're concealing it."

Three jaws dropped, and three very scared-looking firemen stared at one another.

"As owners of the house you are responsible."

"That skunk Ortiz!" said Bakes.

"And his sister," said Fairfield.

"Wife," corrected the doctor, with a smile.

"Was she, the Jezebel! Well, we knew nothing about any Yellow Jack. You can bet your life on that, Doc."

The doctors shrugged, "The papers were in order. I saw them myself. You are responsible. As to whether you will do gaol afterwards for your offence, that remains to be seen. But for the present you go to the lazaretto, and remain under observation. You will be interesting subjects. You have stayed a dozen hours, and without precautions, in an atmosphere which is reeking with infection, and I should say that the odds are about nine to one that you'll get the disease.  I shall take samples of your blood twice a day, and examine them microscopically,  and let you know the results.  Quite an interesting case. And now, señores, if you will kindly go with my friends the police, whose nerves are in strings, you will probably prevent them from shooting."

IT WAS three very savage firemen who were liberated by the Vera Cruz authorities four weeks later, and for the moment their one object in life was to find out Señor Ortiz, and leave on him permanent marks of their displeasure? But Don Porfirio Diaz, who is President of Mexico, and who keeps his eye upon (among other things) the Port Authority of Vera Cruz, discovered that a ship was sailing that day for Hull, with vacancies among her stokehold crew. The three firemen were escorted on board by an armed force, who lined up along the wharf while the steamer cast her shore fasts. The three firemen irrupted violently on deck when the ship was clear of the wall, and bombarded the escort with coal lumps as the ship drew out into the scummy water of the harbour, and two indignant engineers with spanners, with a profane second mate with a belaying pin, restored discipline, and salved the wounded pride of Mexico.

_______________

2:  The Roulette Lady in Hull.

Observer (Adelaide) 30 April 1910

IT WAS RAINING, and dark, and a keen easterly wind was blowing in from the North Sea and whistling through Hull's dirty streets. A tramp steamer had tied up against the cranes in Albert Dock, and over the first gangplank that joined her to the wall there walked three men in the garb of the stokehold. They were sped upon their journey shorewards with evil language from the two engineers who stood in the gap of the rail above, and they retorted in kind, as far as the limits of three varied vocabularies would carry them. A waiting stevedore's crew stepped out from the shelter of the sheds, and listened with cocked ears.

Clydebank, once on the paving stones, turned and seemed inclined to stop. He was always rather fond of the sound of his own eloquence on occasions like this. But Fairfield, who was certainly the wildest of the three of them abroad, was always decently subdued in his native island.

"Come on, you noisy windbag," said he, "and don t make sport for these unwashed dock loafers."

He shouldered his way ruthlessly into the first two men that stood in front of him, and though they were of the sort that are chair with the blow, they gave way before him. Fairfield's hard, grim face and his lean, angular body, which showed through the thin dungaree, did not suggest that much profit would be got out of a fight.

Rakes,  the American, backed him up.

"There was no profit," Rakes told Clydebank, "in staying there throwing words which no one would pay for."

So the Scot was persuaded, and the three of them walked out through the dock premises and made their way through the mean streets that lay beyond. They were ill clad, and they had come from a tropical port, and a thin cold rain and keen wind bit them to the bone.

"Oh to be in England, now that April's here," quoted Fairfield. "I move we go straight to the shipping office and try for boat, to get out of here as soon as possible."

'We've got no discharges," said the Yankee, "or, rather, if we applied for them they'd be so endorsed that no other engineer would ship us. This discharge system's sickening."

"We had our fun on that old tramp, and naturally we have to pay for it. We must just slip across to Grimsby and ship from there under pursers names. Question is, how are we to get a cast across the Humber?"

"Ferry fare's fivepence to New Holland," said Clydebank, "and one and five on to Grimsby Docks. That's five and six for three. We've got in cash $1.50 Mex., which is three bob English."

"Can't we walk round by the head of the creek?"

"Which creek?"

"Humber, I think you called it."

"Take a week of hard tramping."

They were standing still at a street corner during this argument, and the gaslights were gleaming on the wet pavements, and the cold drizzle was soaking further into their thin tropical clothes.

"Look here, said Fairfield, "if we don't get a move on we shall have the police after us. Those blighters on the boat are certain to make complaint as soon as they get on shore."

"But why?" began the Scot.

"Don't argue. They will. There's the fourth engineer's broken jaw to explain, for one thing. Now I've a scheme."

"We'll take it," said Rakes, "Move ahead and tells, as we go."

"Well," said the Englishman rather lamely, "it isn't much of a scheme. I used to know a— er— a party that kept a sort of roulette joint here. That was four years ago, but if it hasn't been raided and it stands in the same place we might go and push our luck in shillings and see what happens."

It certainly was not at first sight a very appetising scheme, but their minds were blank for a better, and the chill of the English rain was eating into them. Anyway there would probably be shelter, and warmth for the moment," Fairfield grumbled as he walked.

"Thinking over your shady past?" the Yankee enquired.

"Not I. I never regret. But there used to be some tommy rot of a password, and for the life of me I can't remember it. However, I believe we'll get in another way."

Ostensibly and .to the street front the gambling house was merely, an innocent grocer's shop, wherein men and women, who seemed for the most part connected with the seafaring industry, brought brown sugar, and Chicago bacon, and other such harmless necessaries. But Fairfield begged paper and a pencil, and after thought composed a letter which he folded and sealed, and handed to one of the shopmen.

The man looked at the superscription, glanced keenly at Fairfield, nodded, and went out. When he returned he said the cashier was ready to pay what was owing, and invited them into the back shop. Thence up a stair they reached a bedroom, and then through the back of a bed which very conveniently swung aside, they found another door, another stair, and a long passage. At the end of a considerable journey they came out into a stale-smelling room, lit by electrics, and furnished with a long table and a score of chairs. At the table was an old woman with wrinkled, yellow face and décolleté dress, who monotonously ran a roulette wheel, and paid out or received the consequent gains. There were about a dozen men playing, seafarers for the  most part, with a couple of clerks among them. The old woman looked up as they entered, held her eye on Fairfield's face for a moment, winked, and went on with her game.

"Give me the firm's capital." said Fairfield, and sat down opposite the croupier. "Is Mexican money good here, Madame?" he asked.

"From others, no. From you, Captain, this once, yes, as you will win the coup, if you remember, as you say you do, and put it on the number you should put it on."

Fairfield hesitated, and then placed a centavo piece, en plain, on 4.

"You don't seem very certain about it," the old woman sneered.

"I've more certainty than capital.

"Well, gentlemen, make your game, rein n'va plus. Four wins, evens, mange and black." She gathered in the losings with her rake, and handed out the winnings. "And now, gentlemen, as the bank has been having very good luck all the day, and the captain here has finally broken it, I shall close for the evening."

There were murmurs.

"You heard me," she said sharply. "Ibid you all good-night."

The men filed away rather sullenly, and the three firemen were about to follow, well enough content with their win. But she stopped them with the fraction of a nod and when the others had gone, "Now," said she, "let's sup. Have you appetite?"

"As we have been firing on bare Board of Trade whack for three hard weeks," said Fairfield, "the answer to that is Yes, How did you know that I should back No. 4 just now, and that 4 would turn up?"

"The latest theory," said the old woman, "is that it is done by New Thought. Buy personally I have made a living at it for more years than I care to think about."

They went through into another underground room, and seated themselves at a table, and presently were supping heartily enough on chicken and champagne.

"This," said Rakes, "is like a foretaste of the better land. Don't you think,  madame, you'd like to take the lot of us into partnership?"

The Lady, very drily, had her doubts.

"I suppose," said Clydebank, "you expect the police to raid you sometime or other. They always sooner or later get dissatisfied with the bribe you pay."

The old woman wrinkled. her yellow cheeks into a laugh. "Hasn't the captain here told you of his prowess? How he bowled out six policemen one alter the other, and gave us time to whip away the roulette table out of sight."

"He never alludes to his shady past," said Rakes.

"He was my hero on that occasion," said the old woman, "and I never forget.  I've got you down for a nice thing in my will, captain. By-the-way, how did you get clear?"

"Ran. I was stowed away in the fireman's forecastle before half an hour was past. But I', nervous about those Bobbies. some of them would be able to swear to me. That's why I want to get away from―"

"Pist!" snarled the old woman, "here they come. Now quick, captain, you mustn't be seen. You other two lift the table aside."

They did this. It was a heavy table.

"Turn back the carpet, and lift the flap."

They did this, and, beneath, under the floor boards, lay a hole in the damp earth, remarkably like a grave.

"Get in, captain.

Fairfield did as he was told— the noise of hammering on the door grew more insistent— Rakes and. the Scot closed the flap, relaid the carpet, replaced the heavy table, sat themselves once more before their plates, and went on with their meal.

Then the old woman went across and opened the door to a posse of police.

"Oh, it's here you are knocking? I thought it was at the next house. Well, sergeant, what can I do for you?"

"I hold a search warrant. I intend to go through the premises."

"I'm sure you're quite welcome to see everything that's here," except the supper that's gone down these two gentlemen's throats."

"Information has been laid against you to-night for running a roulette table."

"Is that so indeed? Then I shall have to bring an action for libel against you, sergeant, for if you find a roulette board here I'm prepared to eat it."

The police were not fools, They knew by their reception that all incriminating articles had been removed, and their search was half-hearted. They did not disturb the table or the carpet, and presently after the sergeant had exchanged ironical farewells with the old woman, they took themselves off, and the door was shut. And thereafter Fairfield was resurrected.

He came out shivering and couching, "Here, give me another drink to wash the taste of that grave out of my throat. And now, Madame, if the coast's dear we'll go."

"Hullo," said the old woman, "nerve gone, Captain?"

"In England, when the police are on my trail, yes. I once in England— well, that's no concern of yours. Many thanks for the supper and cash. I wonder when we shall meet again. And now please show us out by one of your fancy exits."

They emerged into the dawn through a pile of planks in a timber yard, and made their way down to the landing stage whence depart the boats for New Holland, They had some 35 shillings in cash upon them, and their interiors were well nourished. They puffed at their pipes, and knew contentment.

But on the pier Rakes asked a question, "I've been wondering—"

"Foolish thing to do," Fairfield told him.

"I've been wondering what was the letter you wrote in the grocer's shop to that old woman, and where that number 4 came in."

"You have my full permission," said the Englishman, "to keep on wondering."

________________

3: Mrs. Davidson and P.P.I.

Observer (Adelaide) 30 April 1910

"THEY'RE savage brutes, all three of them," said the second engineer, thoughtfully, as he wrapped his cut knuckles with a piece of waste. "I've that Englishman, who has the impudence to call himself Fairfield, in my watch, and on the twice I've had to speak to him, I've always had a spanner handy. To give him just due, though, he has always done his work well at sea, and Lord knows with this filthy Jap coal they've their work cut out to keep steam."

"Then whose head were you breaking?" asked the third engineer, who had just come on watch.

"I don't quite know, but by the look of my knuckles it must have been as hard as a cannon ball. It was quite dark inside the bunker when the slush lamp was lucked over, and as the chap, whoever he was, was whanging about with a fire-stick, I concluded not to have my brains split. And got out."

"It wasn't one of your own watch, then?"

"No, I counted them, and they were all there. It was one of your beauties."

"Sounds like a tough amongst my crew who calls himself Clydebank, a big, rawboned Scot, with lean square shoulders, and hands like hydraulic shears.   But he'd be too clever to let you catch him."

"How could you catch anybody in this rotten old tank? There are four doors to that bunker, and if there wasn't a door handy, any one with a foot on him could kick out a plate. Gee! Do you hear that sea hit her?"

The steamer Buzzard lifted, stopped, shook violently, and made the noise that one could fancy would be made by a gigantic biscuit box kicked along a gutter by a gigantic boy. Her engines raced, and the standards heaved cheerfully against the bed plates. By the sobbing of her condensers and pumps it was plain that something was seriously wrong with a good many things on that side of the engine room, In earlier days, when she had been the R.M.S. Enteric, she had been pushed along at the top of her speed through assorted western ocean weather, regardless of wear and strain. It pays them to work ships to death on that service. And when she was sold out of the line to her present owners, who made her into an uneconomical cargo trap by the simple process of gutting her of cabins and saloons, and smoke rooms, and bathrooms, and adding cargo hatches, they had not thought it necessary to give her even so much as a lick of paint by way of further overhaul, and, as a consequence, she was "tender" in every particle of her fabric.

"If she gets about three more smacks like that," opined the third, "you won't get , back to many Mrs. Davidson. You'll be neatly drowned here in the Bay."

"I wish Mrs. Davidson―" the Second. Engineer began, and there broke off. "Well," he said, "It's your watch. No special orders, except that if it lulls, which it won't, you're to repack that bilge pump. The old chief always seems to be hoping we'll get ahead on the leaks enough to take down that pump. I'll just go to the messroom for a mouthful of grub; and then turn in."

He swung off up the sleep iron ladder, and once more the Buzzard took it green over her decks, and shivered in every square inch of her fabric.

"Go it, old girl," said the third as he jammed himself against the log desk and began to make chalk entries on a slate.

"I guess those ducks in Grimsby knew "what they were doing when they took out all those P.P.I.'s."

His superior stopped sharply on the ladder. "What's that?" he called down.

"I just heard it casually before we sailed. Quite a lot of people seemed to think the old tank wouldn't get home again, and insured her against total loss."

The second engineer swallowed. "Well, they're the owners. Why shouldn't they?"

"Owners be sugared," said the cheerful third.  "These people who take out P.P.I. — Policy Proves Interest, you know— are just outsiders who think they know a bit, and are betting that the boat's intended to sink.  I believe that sort of insurance is bang illegal: but the underwriters take it all light, and pay, too, when a loss comes. Well, so long."

Out on deck the scene was sufficiently terrific to have daunted men in the big liners. The great Biscay waves rolled up all white-headed above their dark-green bases. The heads were blown off by the gale, and formed a spindrift that cut the face like whips. The great masses of water hurled themselves against the weak steamer with such a force that one gasped to see her emerge from each shock. And here and there over the bay the masts and funnels the shipping swung about against the sky in ridiculous impotence.

As the watch changed and the third engineer took over charge, inside a noisy, black, wave-beaten bunker where as firemen and not coal trimmers they neither of them had any right to be, little Rakes, the Yankee, was questioning his big friend Clydebank.

"Well, did you dot him?"

"I tried to," said the tall Scot, "but he dodged me. I lammed at Milliard with a fire slice, and I'll bet he's sore, somewhere, but I couldn't get home enough to cripple him. Besides, he hooked it. Mr. Second's not a funk as a general thing, but I guess he's got a bit of conscience stowed away somewhere, and it was hurting him like sciatica just then."

"What was the game? Could you make it out?"

"Clear as a bell. There's been a seacock into that bunker. Put there, I guess, before it was a bunker, when the old tank was a steam hotel. Part of a marble bath where the first-class passengers dabbled with their tootsies, and swagged about having cold baths, and thought they were roughing it in a devil of a way. Well, the seacock's gone, and there's a plate over the hole, bolted on. It's been covered with coals until to-day, but we worked them out in this morning's watch, as Mr. Second Engineer would know, and he came to attend to that patch with a spanner. I watched him, and I tell you my fingers itched. He was deliberately setting about to scuttle the boat. When he'd all the bolts off but two, I came out of the shadow and knocked over his slush lamp with, a knob of coal, and then went for him. Gee, but the man was frightened. He hit like a steam hammer. Feel that lump above my ear."

"That's all right," said the lean, little Yankee. "You'd feel frightened yourself if you were trying to sink a steamer, and some person or persons unknown dropped on you while you were doing it. I believe the reward for barratry in Great Britain is about seven years' penal servitude. In the States, where we're neater, we lynch for it."

Later on, the two foregathered with their friend, Fairfield, in the alleyway which led to the firemen's forecastle, and compared notes. He was a haggard wreck of a man. this one who called himself Fairfield, with the manners of a gentleman sprouting out through the sulphurous language of the stokehold.

"The holders of these P.P.T. insurances," said the Englishman at length, "seem good sound business men. They don't intend to be landed with any loss of their premiums. Good Lord! I wonder how many people there are now on board who are standing in with them to lose, the ship. First the Old Man piles her up on the rocks outside Aden; and wasn't he mad when His Britannic Majestic's cruiser insisted on pulling the old tank off into deep water again? Then somebody knocks out a shackle in the steering chains just at a critical moment, and we nearly got run down by the Dutch boat in Gibraltar Bay."

"Yon shackle might have jarred loose," said Clydebank judicially. "She's very ill-found all round."

"I'll swear it didn't. I saw it for myself. There were fresh, clean hammer marks on it, where some one had knocked out the pin. And then to clinch the lot, there's the second engineer— who, by the way, may well have been the boy who doctored the shackle— caught red handed taking the clout off that old seacock. It's amusing."

"He may be at it again now." It was Bakes who made the suggestion. He was always the suspicious member of the

"I don't think so. Once scared off he's not likely to tackle that job again. Besides if he sank the old tub now with this sea running he'd drown himself with the lot of us, and that's no man's game. You can bet your sweet lives they'll one or other of them he up to some other little racket. The old Buzzard's seen her last of dry land, that's a sure thing."

"If only I could see my way of standing in over the deal," said little Rafter. "It's about time I made a bit of a haul over something. I'm sick to death of heaving coal."

"Don't try and be dishonest, especially when you've no chance of bringing it off," Fairfield stretched his lean, sinewy arms and yawned.

Clydebank brought down a shining black fist on the edge of the bunk. "No, I say no. She's not going to sink. Mrs. Davidson took out one of those P.P.I, insurances, and I'm going to dish that woman's ambitions schemes, if I have to stand watch and watch all through the rest of the trip. And you, too, must help."

"The underwriters ought to pay us a bit." said Rakes rebelliously.

"Underwriters be sugared. The gory old tank could sink and welcome for all I cared if it wasn't that I've got to get even with that woman."

"I rather bar shooting at a petticoat," said Fairfield. He always had a soft corner for women.

"That was not a mash of yours," said the Scot sourly.

"Oh, if you make a point of it," said Fairfield, "of course we'll chip in."

THE Buzzard wallowed on northwards through the bay with her tender boilers and her tender skin shuddering under each blow of the seas, and her worn-out old engines grinding like a coffee mill.

She was hove-to for thirty hours, and made only sixty miles of her distance to Ushant Light during the next 24. The second engineer took to the whisky bottle; the old chief spoke to him sharply about it. The captain drank even harder than he had been doing all the way home from Bombay, which is saying a good deal. Clyde bank and his two friends slept soundly in the half-swamped forecastle, because the weather just then was far too bad for barratry.

But it was nervous work for all that.  The third engineer voiced a very general sentiment when, as he put back the pickle bottle into the rack which hung above the messroom table, he remarked:—

"Those people ashore who took out those P.P.I.'s were probably scoundrels, but it doesn't in the least follow that they were fools. It's a carrion crew sort of game, this P.P.I., and it ought to be stopped by Parliament, if Parliament ever thought about sea-going engineers and sailors, which it doesn't. But anyway, there it is, and I can't help thinking the old tank's hooked."

"I don't, see how it matters to you," said the second. "Your kit's insured. you told me so; and if the men who underwrote the steamer are got at, well they aren't friends of yours."

"I'd sooner see Lloyds landed than not. if it comes to that. Serve them right for allowing these P.P.I, gambles.  It's that small trifle my own life I'm thinking about, I should hate to be drowned and win their bets."

"Drowned be hanged. D'ye think you're the only man on board? If the old tub goes down you can bet it will be smooth water."

The third engineer stared, and then he got up. "Here," he said, "I don't know what you're thinking about."

"I'm thinking about Mrs. Davidson," said the other muzzily. "If she gets the £6,000 she's aiming at, I can marry her, and she'll buy me a partnership in a fine works ashore with the money. Yes. you may take it. I'm thinking of Molly Davidson."

"Then think of some other kind of heaven for a change. No, you don't have that whisky bottle. You've more than enough on hoard already! You're due on watch now, and you'd better go below if you can get there without tumbling down the ladder."

"'Crect. Well, ol' man, le's pray for smoo' water."

The second engineer went out to go on duty, and the third stared at the fiddles which tried to jerk themselves off the messroom table. "That was a pretty straight tip," he mused. "However, of course, it stands to reason they won't scuttle her till they get into smooth water. It isn't my job to split. It does a man no good to be messed up with the lawbugs. But I suppose that goat will marry Mrs. Davidson, if he brings this off.''

Thus exit the third engineer from the sphere of interference. There remained, then, three very ruffianly firemen between the steamer Buzzard and the bottom of the sea, and, although up to now Lloyd's do not know it, and before have not recognised it, I hope they will take this, the only intimation, and sent suitable acknowledgments. I suppose legitimately on ship and cargo, and Buzzard was insured for a matter of between £90,000 and £120,000. Under P.P.I. I have gathered that there was another £60,000: or £60,000 clapped on to this, and, although the exact figures are hard to get at, it is fair to estimate that my three friends saved various Underwriters at least £150,000 sterling, which they would have had to pay up on a "total-loss," if all had gone well— or shall I put it, if all had gone as intended.

Smooth water came when they passed Ushant, and got into the Channel, and with it danger. The Captain risked his certificate, and gave a course which, if followed, would have either knocked Guernsey out of the water, or crumpled the shaky Buzzard past her collision bulkhead against its iron rocks and after that he retired to the seclusion of the charthouse, with a whisky  accompaniment. But the mate on watch, unsuspicious creature, knowing nothing about the P.P.I, interests, pleasantly shared the news with one of his fellow officers, and together they decided to "save the Old Man's ticket." They altered the course to one that kept them in mid-Channel, and agreed that if questioned they would unanimously swear that this was the course their revered skipper had given them.

It may be that the Second Engineer was relying on his Captain, and so did nothing till the Channel Islands were well astern, and it was clear—that the Buzzard could not blunder on to one of them: it may be that he was working independently; I do not know. But, anyway, it was not till the ancient steamer was off Dover, and bucking into an ugly head sea, that he made any further attempt to impede her progress. But at that slate of the game Clydebank caught him tampering with the thrust blocks.

Now, the thrust blocks were by the shaft tunnel mouth, which is aft of the engine room, and Clydebank (as a fireman) had no business there at all. Clydebank's particular Hades was the other side of the engine room, forward bulkhead. Nothing but sheer naked suspicion could have brought him to that part of the ship.

But he got there in time to find two thirds of the holding-down bolts of the thrust blocks lucking about loose on the floor plates, and the rest stripping their threads under the heavy bucking of the shaft to the seaway. It was a marvel that the ancient shaft had not been carried away already. Both the Second Engineer and Clydebank were armed with -heavy spanned, and both hit at once; but the Second's eye was bemused with whisky, and Clydebank could hit straight, drunk or sober.

The fracture of the Second Engineer's wrist was a compound, and the pain made him faint. Clydebank put back enough nuts to hold things generally into place, and then retired; and when the Second Engineer was found, it was gathered from his hazy account that he was trying to replace stripped nuts, and had saved a broken shaft at the expense of his wrist. As he admitted himself, it was a poor tale; but (the Third being silent) nobody came forward with a better, and Mr. Second emerged ashore with a broken wrist, and much credit for having practically saved his ship. I regret to let the villain of the piece score, but under those circumstances score he did.

I think it is Mrs. Davidson who has some of my sympathy. She embarked capital in a financial operation in the hope that the speculation would bring her much money and a husband.

All I can gather she got out of it were some hard words from an inebriated Scottish fireman, who was egged on to speech by two perfectly sober companions, a tall thin Englishman, and a jerky little Yankee.

Said the Scot in his final peroration:—

"I'll teach ye, Mrs. Molly Davidson, to keep my spare shirt for rent due, when I go to sea."

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4: The Boiled Fishhouse in Marseilles

Observer (Adelaide) 7 May 1910

"THAT ROCK," said Fairfield, "is the Chateau d'If where Monte Cristo was in gaol. The church with the statue on the hill is Notre Dame de la Garde, and the best pub in Marseilles is the Louvre et Paix in the Cannebiere."

"Does the Louvre et Paix give one a blow out, wine included, for one franc?" asked Clydebank.

"It does not."

"Then don't bring it into the conversation. D'ye know the gutter side of Marseilles? That's what we want."

"Outside my present knowledge. By tomorrow I daresay I shall be able to give you information."

"Then it'll be no use," said Rakes. "I can give some right now. I've got it from three of the deck passengers. One was an Arab in a kaik and turban, one was a Zouave in baggy breeches and fez, and the other was an ordinary anarchist in blue velvet pants and a blouse, and a lot of hair and a tam o' shanter. At least if he isn't an anarchist he's a painter, which morally is worse. All of them agree that the place to go to is a certain boiled fish-house kept by one Badinot along the harbour front. They say that boiled fish is the great line to eat in Marseilles."

"Bouillabaisse, it's called," said Fairfield. "It's made of fourteen different kinds of fish mixed in the light proportion and boiled in meat stock. It's like heaven to eat, and the results stay by you for about the next four days."

"Well, I'm going to take bouillabaisse in mine," said Bakes, "for the sake of local colour."

Now shore leave is a thing which all firemen and coal trimmers consider to be within their charter of rights, and when all shore leave was curtly refused the three felt aggrieved. The fact that the dock labourers of Marseilles were indulging in one of their usual strikes, and that all steamer hands were being turned to, to work cargo from their own vessels for extra pay, appealed to them with no force. They felt no interest whatever in the cargo, the ship, their officers, shareholders, or managers. They wished for, and intended to have a run ashore, and a meal of bouillabaisse; and the fact that the steamer was a fairly comfortable one did not weigh with them. They had quite discarded that quality called foresight, which accounts in large measure for their remaining in the firemen's forecastle.

Fairfield unknotted his sweat rag from his neck (when word was passed about no shore leave) and expressed his intention of cleaning up and walking off there and then, but the Scot dissuaded him.

"You'll just be dotted by the police if you do," said Clydebank, "and spend a week in the Marseilles jug. And though I've no doubt you'll pick up there a lot of what Rakes calls local colour, and I should call fleas, I hae ma doots if it'll run to bouillabaisse, which is what we're after. Ca' cannie, laddie, as they say on Tyneside. We'll desert in the wee sma' hours, and make a day of it."

To be precise, this is what they did, walking themselves thoroughly leg weary, and seeing the sights of Marseilles under Fairfield's guidance. Fairfield's knowledge of Marseilles and its surroundings was extensive in its way, but it was confined to big hotels and restaurants (which they inspected from the outside) and big country houses along the Corniche road at which they did not feel inclined to call. And so when 11.45 arrived, and they found themselves once more on the old harbour front, they were thoroughly depressed, and not a little footsore. They hailed the sight of Rakes' anarchist in the blouse and blue velvet trousers with enthusiasm, and under his guidance were soon stretching their weary legs under the marble topped tables of that harbourside restaurant where Monsieur Badinot had established a reputation for the cooking of bouillabaisse.

The meal, to their keen sea appetites, seemed perfection, the bouillabaisse itself a dish for the gods. Even the poor red wine they felt was a precious nectar which worked its way to every limb and every outlying artery. And with the culminating coffee and cognac, and the pipes of ship's plug in full draught, they would not have changed places with Emperors who had the pick of Cuba and Tokay.

The Anarchist, as they called him, spoke a glib English, who, it appeared had begun life as a ship's cook, spoke enough of that language of the sea to make himself understood; and as the five of them sat outside the restaurant with a mere hedge in a green box dividing them from the cosmopolitan mob of Marseilles harbourside, a confidence begotten of bouillabaisse grew up among them, and was fostered by the Mediterranean breeze which came to them spiced with oil, garlic. and copra.

"It is pleasant," said, the anarchist, "but it is not life. Life is over yonder." He waved cigarette-stained fingers vaguely towards the south. "In Afrique," explained Monsieur Badinot.

"There is also Romance."

"And in Alger are the Jew-women of Espain, ver' fine."

"Nice girls, eh?" said Fairfield. "So I've heard."

Monsieur Badinot cast languishing eyes up to the awning above him to explain their charm.

"Africa I've heard is dryish," said the Scot.

"But are there dollars to be got there?" asked Rakes. "That's what I want to know lie fore I budge."

The Anarchist drew their heads together by a gesture. "Millions for the right men."

"Eh?" said Rakes, "what's this? Gun running?"

The Anarchist drew himself up, and put a dirty forefinger before his mouth.

"He may not say," explained Monsieur Badinot. "In honour he may not say. But if you join, you get big share profits.'

"Join what?"

"Join expedition."

"Where to?"

Again the wave of a palm explained that the expedition would sail with sealed orders.

"I think this sounds a bit of all right," said the Englishman. "I'm always open to a gamble."

"I'll want a written agreement about profit sharing," said the Yankee.

"And I don't start till I hear where it's to," said the man of caution. "To Hades with your sealed orders."

Monsieur Badinot hospitably plied the doubter with brandy, but as the Scot insisted on his host drinking glass for glass, the Provençal soon decided that he could make no impression on that hardy northern head without getting very badly under the weather himself, and dropped back once more on to promise and argument. Had any of the three firemen served in the armies of their own countries?

It appeared that none of them had.

Could they shoot?

Rakes professed handiness with a "gun," by which he meant a revolver; the Englishman said that once he was pretty useful at driven game; the Scot said he had three times missed the bell in a shooting gallery, but otherwise lacked experience.

But perhaps they were all good at the box?

The three looked at one another, and grinned reminiscently.

"Yes," said Rakes, "you can take it we all spar some. If it's a case of a bet, I'll back Clydebank to put up his hands with the best man you have here in Marseilles."

"Bien," said Monsieur Badinot, "then though I could not give you commission as officer, you'd be gentleman soldiers to start and presently might be sous-officier."

"That's non-com.," said Fairfield. "I'm not taking any, thanks. Too much responsibility, and you have to fill in returns, and never go on the spree and wink at the girls. Plain private for me, please. But, look here, what's the game? Is it filibustering?"

But the word was beyond both Monsieur Badinot and his friend in the blue velvet pantaloons. They could only repeat that the expedition was "mos' secret," and possessed of possibilities whose magnitude only shrugs and hand wavings could describe. But there would be fighting—

"Well," said Rakes, "what about the fighting?"

"Perhaps you would not like that?"

"You may take it we're all three open to doing' any fighting we're paid for."

"Oh, if that is all," the restaurant keeper assured them, "you will have regular pay— good pay— and―"

"And prize money in galore in prospect, but which we shall never touch," said Fairfield. "Well boys, I guess we'll join, eh? I'm sick of handling a fire slice and wheeling coals from a bunker."

The other two were equally fired with the idea of adventure; only they both held out for an agreement. Monsieur Badinot consulted his friend in an alien tongue. Bien, the agreement should be produced, and in the meanwhile again to the health of all the messieurs, And so by the time the agreement came, what with the cobalt sky above, the general warmth of Marseilles harbourside, the bouillabaisse, and the brandy, the three firemen did not wrestle with two pages of print they did not understand, but signed their names with a fine-pointed pen at the foot of the document, and Monsieur peppered sand over the signatures to dry them.

"And now," said the citizen with the blue velvet legs, "as you have joined us, mes enfants, have the goodness to follow me."

"I think we'll have another noggin or two of that brandy first," said Clydebank.

But the springs of Monsieur Badinot's hospitality seemed suddenly to have dried up; he became on the moment that person they had so often met before on their travels, the innkeeper who refused them further nourishment; and so, with some grumbling, they stepped outside the box of green hedge, and make their way along through the many coloured crowd at the Anarchist's heels.

In and out he led them, and again in and out, and presently stopping at a dreary looking official door, knocked, and went within. Against the walls stood four men in uniform. In a chair sat a tall, thin military officer. The Anarchist clicked his heels together and saluted.

"I am Sgt. Fournier, my captain, and I bring three recruits for the Legion d'Etrangers, and I ask for the bounty." This in French.

"Legion d'Etrangers?" said Fairfield, who caught the words. "That means the Foreign Legion of the French Army, and the hardest discipline on earth. Are we having any?"

"Having Gehenna," said the Yankee.

"Silence!" thundered the man in the chair. "You are already enlist. Your names you have sign."

"Then unsign them, old cock," said Fairfield pleasantly.

"Arrest these men!" ordered the officer, and Sgt. Fournier, who evidently expected trouble, sprang with both hands at the little Yankee's throat. But he sprang back again almost as quickly, sprang back, screaming, holding both hands up to his right eye socket, into which the resourceful Rakes had violently thrust his thumb.

The other two were artists at such a rough and tumble. The Frenchmen tried to use their side-arms, but the representatives of Anglo-Saxon stokeholds were too quick. The knock-out blow of iron fists went home time after time on the Gallic jaws, and in a matter of seconds the fray was fought and over.

"Here, you fellows, out of this, and quick."

They ran out and slammed the door behind them.

"Back to our own packet. They'll never dare haul us off an English ship."

THREE DAYS LATER when that British tramp was steaming out of Marseilles harbour, the second engineer pointed out the redoubtable three to his chief.

"Coming across here from Grimsby, it struck me those three were about the biggest toughs I've ever shipped, sir," said the Second. "Then as you know they broke ship when you said all hands had to work cargo. But since they came back they've done more work than all the rest of the watch put together. They're three good men, those."

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5: Crossing the Bar at Tampico.

Observer (Adelaide) 7 May 1910

A STIFF NORTHER had been blowing in the Mexican Gulf, and the pilot could not come out, and the S.S. Flamingo, being deep laden, did not dare to cross the Tampico bar. So she hung on outside, burning just enough coal to keep her head to sea, and the greybacks made a clean sweep over her decks. Once every half hour, with chill regularity, a bigger sea than usual squelched against her upper bridge, and set a hissing showerbath on to the top of the fiddley, whence it descended in a grimy trickle on the profane firemen and trimmers below.

Presently, through the iron gratings, beside the salt-whitened funnel, there appeared Fairfield the Englishman, and Clydebank the Scot, two sweating, grimy figures, who proceeded to slew the ventilators away from the increased breeze.

To seaward the air was full of spindrift, and the view was circumscribed; to landward. through the water mist, they could see the two training walls of the Panuco River, the lighthouse, the pilot station, the black coal wharfs beyond that, and the pink-and-white city of New Tampico with its amber coloured Cathedral beyond again.

"I used to know a girl there," said Fairfield, nodding shoreward to show he meant Tampico.  "She was a cross between New Orleans Creole and local Spanish, with a touch of Indian thrown in. She'd big black velvet eyes and a figure that was all curves, and a waist as big as a threepenny bit. "When this breeze lets us get in, I'll look her up, if she's still there."

A hissing shower of spindrift dropped from overhead, and resoaked their grimy wet garments.

"Go it, old girl," said Fairfield. "It's worth coming up on top to get a douche like that."

"The old female dog'll break her back if she hits many more of those," said the Scot. "I swear I heard a row of rivets draw when she did that scend. The bilge pumps can't kick overboard any more water than they're handing already."

"You're a cheerless creature. What the devil does it matter to you if she does sink? She isn't your ship; your entire kit isn't worth half a crown; and if you do get ashore after she's sunk, some distressed seaman's show will give you an entirely new rig out gratis, and stand you a free passage to some place you don't in the least want to go to, with grub and tracts thrown in, Besides, ashore and saved from the wreck, I can throw attitudes before my girl."

"What about the lady's maid aboard here you've been making eyes at?"

"Lady companion she calls herself; it's more genteel. Well, she seemed lonely, poor dear, and the moon looked tempting, and both, of us felt we had to talk. Clydebank, you haven't the makings of a lady's man in you anywhere, or you'd understand."

"By God!" said the Scotsman. "Look there!"

The girl they were talking about had apparently come out of the companion way, and had been standing on the deck below them, in the shelter of the house; out of their sight. The green sea which had come along the decks, had lifted her from her feet, torn her from her hold, and carried her in its chilly green arms, over the rail and on to the crest of a foaming greyback.

"I'll show you if I'm not a lady's man," said Clydebank, and ran across the fiddley to get impetus for a dive which would carry him clear of the rail. But the Englishman laughed, caught him on the shoulder with a ready fist when he was in midcareer, and sent him flying.

"Don't you imagine for one moment I'm going to let you cut me out with the lady's maid,' said Fairfield, and, watching for a moment when the steamer's roll showed water sheer beneath him, jumped clear, and dropped out of sight. The whole affair had not occupied a dozen seconds.

"Man overboard!" howled Clydebank, and picked himself up, and ran aft, and vaulted the upper bridge rail. He dived a hand under the oilskins of the wheel quartermaster, took a knife from his sheath, and set to cutting adrift the bridge lifebuoys, and flinging them overboard

"Two's enough," said the mate of the watch when that number were in the water, but Clydebank gave him an ugly look, and went on cutting, and the mate forbore to argue further with a man with a sheath knife.

"Now a boat," said Clydebank.

"You infernal idiot, what boat could live a minute with that sea running?" bawled the mate "Besides, the water's full of sharks. They'll be eaten before you could get to them."

The Scot pumped back over the bridge rail and yelled down a ventilator—"Rakes! Hy! below there! Rakes! That you? Then come up on top. Fairfield's over in the ditch after a skirt, and the Mate thinks he doesn't want to lend us the punt―"

The captain was on the bridge by this time, and to him Clydebank next made application. "Sir, I want a boat."

"It's suicide, you mad Highlander."

"Then there's two of us want to do it. my chum Rakes and me"— he jerked his head to the tangle of water, where presumably, Fairfield might be— "We don't choose to let him swim lonely."

"Take the port lifeboat then. I'll pay the ship off, and give you a lee, and we'll lower you out on a line."

"I'll go with them," said the mate.

"No sir," said Clydebank. "This is a stokehold job. You stay on board and see us brought back nicely to the winch when we've got him."

The port lifeboat was stripped of her cover, swung outboard, and lowered with the two firemen in her. Twice before they could get her free of the falls did the steamer try to roll down on top of her but twice by frenzied effort, they contrived to fend her clear with, the oars."

"Pay out, you son of perdition." screamed Clydebank, to the man who stubbed the line on the bollard above.

The Flamingo had fallen off into the trough to give the boat a lee, and the seas swept over her as though she had been a half-tide rock. One of her weather boats smashed under the weight of water as she hung in davits, and the raffle of wreckage swept down to leeward, and, amid this the lifeboat lurched, and wallowed, and strained at the line that held her. In the stern sheets, Rakes, the resourceful, kept her with a steering oar from sheering broadside, on. Amidships, Clydebank straddled on the thwarts, and blinked the stinging sea-smoke from his eyes, and tried to keep Fairfield and the girl in sight, as they rode up and down on the dizzy rollers.

Once out of the immediate lee of the steamer, and in full blast of the norther, it was nice work to keep the boat afloat. The top of every wave was a crumbling breaker; the troughs roared with yeasty broken water. The boat rode corkily enough at first, but the water slapped green over her sides, and the raffle of water breaker, tiller, rudder, dipper, and so on with which she was filled were soon afloat, and were soon for the most part jerked over the gunwales. Oars, mast, and yard would have followed their example, but Clydebank, who did not want a broken leg, took a couple of turns of the halliard round these, and made them fast to the thwarts early on in the proceedings.

Now the rate of drift of the lifeboat, which drew but little water, was greater than that of the Flamingo, which was just then, drawing 22 ft. 6 in., so that the lifeboat rode on a taut line. If all could have gone on as arranged, the boat could have been lowered down to where Fairfield and the girl floated and choked at the lifebuoy, would have got these two on board, would have been hauled hack alongside by the winch, and might very possibly have delivered her cargo on deck. The only drawback to this scheme was the Norther.

As was mentioned above, this was blowing quite hard enough for the Flamingo when she was steaming ahead on to it. She was loaded down to her marks with coal and railroad iron, and had very little reserve buoyancy. When the captain let her fall off into the trough to give the lifeboat a lee, things began to happen. One of her starboard boats got smashed quite early on in the proceedings, as has been mentioned already. The door of the charthouse was burst in and that apartment filled with green churning water.

One end of the upper bridge got unshipped, and the tarpaulins were stripped from No. 2 hatch.

All these trifles the captain regarded with a wooden mind. He expected them when he let the lifeboat go, and swung round his steamer to protect her. But when at the impact of an unusually big sea which hit the vessel right abeam,  there came from her interior a noise like the prolonged rumbling of very near at band thunder, why then he decided it was time to make a different move. The cargo had shifted; the Flamingo had adopted a permanent list to port from which she showed no sign of recovery: and if she got another smack on the side she heaved up so starkly into the air, why die would go over, and tank like a stone. He was very sorry for the two firemen In the boat, and for the other fireman and the girl in the water (if, indeed, they were not already, drowned) but it was out of the question to save them now, and he would be very much surprised if he succeeded in saving his ship and the 70 odd people who remained on her. So he put his helm hard a-lee, and inn his engines to toll speed ahead, and dismissed the lifeboat and the three firemen from his thoughts.

On board the lifeboat Clydebank took in the situation quickly and generously. "Old man's put down his helm, and he's for up and off. Well. I wonder he had the heart to hang on so long. Pass forward your knife, Rakes, and I'll cut her adrift. We shall be pulled under when he begins to go ahead, if we're still in tow."

"Bring her up to the sea anchor first," said the American.

"It's washed overboard. Can't round her head when I call—Now!"

The boat lurched round, getting still more waterlogged in the process, and they bore down on Fairfield and the girl at renewed pace. The two at the lifebuoy were both pretty well exhausted by the banging of the waves, and the water had been forced into them. But there was no time for gentle remedies. They grabbed them by hair and clothes, and hauled them vigorously over the gunwale. They were conscious enough to lie on the floorboards and keep their heads above the slop of water that churned in the bottom of the boat.

"Show us a rag of sail, and I'll drive her in across the bar," Rakes yelled.

Clydebank glanced shoreward. There seemed no gap in the line of surf. The lighthouse snowed where the river came out, but the surf there spouted as high as it did along the beaches.

However it was the one chance, and they turned their hands coolly enough to take it. It was out of the question stepping the boat's heavy mast in that terrific run of sea, but Clydebank by dint of all big strength managed to step an oar, and on this lashed a part of the boat's jib.

The tiny patch of sail lifted her at once, and she raced through the seas like a yacht. The Scot searched and found two buckets lashed to a thwart. He cast, one of these adrift, and baled with it for his life, and presently Fairfield roused and baled with the other.

They bore down on to that spouting bar with a steamer's speed. Nowhere could the eye pick out a canal of green water. All was foaming creaming white.

Then, slam, bang, they were in it among it— under it. The seas roared, and shrieked, and seethed around them. The boat was tossed about like a chip in a gutter. The oar mast was snapped off at the thwart. Rakes at the steering oar was swearing like a fireman because he could not keep her straight. And then she slid over into what seemed to them into comparatively smooth water of the river mouth inside the bar.

They blew further in, and found themselves under a tropical sunshine that mode the banks and the river yield up a sound of steam. Two leathery black shark fins still escorted them....

CLYDEBANK lifted un the girl, and set her on a thwart and talked to her; and she with a primitive instinct began to readjust her draggled finery.

Fairfield sat himself on the gunwale aft near Rakes. .

"Its a dashed good thing," he murmured to his friend with a wink, "that one isn't expected to marry any stray young woman one picks un out of the water. You wait till von see the one I've got up at Tampico, Lord! but she's a daisy! such curves!'

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6: The Pirate Syndicate in  New York.

Observer (Adelaide) 14 May 1910

"YES, I know all about it," said Fairfield. "That's the 'World' building, and it's thirty-five stories high, and that's the Mug's Insurance, and it's thirty-nine, and that's the Singer building which is thirty-'leven, and no other city in this world has so many skyscrapers as N'York, and if there's one in the next, I don't want to go there. Main thing that strikes me at present is that ladling lampblack into the boiler furnaces of this infernal Hudson Ferry jars on my artistic taste."

"Ditto," said Clydebank. "Our old walking-beam engine is a disgrace to engineering. I'd sooner go bluewater sailing in an odoriferous windjammer at £3 10s a month."

Rakes, the Yankee, once more spoke up for the joys of sailing under Old Glory, and the delights of being back once more in God's own country; but his two British friends were not to be beguiled.

"I don't mind," said Clydebank, "having a turn-up with an engineer who's using a three-quarter inch spanner as a knuckle-duster, and I'm prepared to take a hiding from such, or give one, as the case may be. But I've got no use for a man who lugs out a hairy great revolver on you when you have the trifling misfortune to break a gauge glass. The nest time that man lets me look down his fire iron I'll have to kill him, just to preserve my own self-respect, and that sort of thing's liable to leave a nasty taste in one's mouth."

And this time it was the Englishman who said "Ditto."

"The trouble is," said Rakes dubiously, ,"if we throw up this job, where are we to get another? Trade's rotten both in the States and in England; tonnage is laid up in every creek; and there are 10 men standing by for every berth that becomes vacant.

They sucked on at their pipes and stared disgustedly down at the muddy Hudson which swirled past the ferry boat's flank.

"There's a thing that caught my eye," said Fairfield tentatively, "but it didn't sound altogether appetising."

"Go ahead," said Clydebank, "it can't be too tough."

"Well, there you've got the word. It said 'Toughs wanted.' "

"Don't choke on the phrase," said the Scotsman. "We are toughs, all three of us. Where was the notice?"

"Over a low-down barber's shop in Silk street, just off Second avenue."

Rakes whistled. "About the toughest neighbourhood in N'York. I reckon I'm on in this. If they say toughs in Silk street, they mean real hard-case toughs, and we're it."

"Let's go. We can help ourselves to leave from now till to-morrow morning, and nothing'll be said. I don't suppose it'll lead to business, but we may manage to snaffle drinks."

So they stepped down off the boat on to the stage, made their way along the evilly paved streets of lower New York, and finally halted before the barber's shop in Silk street, just beyond the Second avenue. It was a grimy looking place, kept (according to the sign) by one Dsruelovski. It bore in the window many notices in Yiddish. The only one in English (besides the statement that "Toughs" were "wanted") informed the reader that "Black eyes" were "painted for 25 cents." and that "hair singein 15 cents" would "stop that falling."

"Are you the party." said Rakes to the Hebrew in charge, "who wants toughs?"

It appeared that he was not. But the Lodge of "Proberdy" had rooms upstairs, and probably information could be obtained there.

"What's Proberdy?" said Rakes. "Probity?"

"Property," suggested the Scot.

"Sheeny word for robbery," said Fairfield. "Come along."

They tramped up some steep and extremely dirty stairs, thumped at a door, and were bidden to "come right in."

Five men sat smoking round a table. At the head of the stable sat a square-faced man in shirt sleeves who was stropping a sheath knife on the edge of his palm.

"Well?" said the Chairman.

"We," said Fairfield, "are the very toughs you advertised for. What's the scheme?"

"What are your qualifications?''

"Four years' service in various stokeholds. Never had two runs in the same boat."

"There's an education in that."— the man slid his knife back into its sheath, and looked them keenly over. "You're English. You're Scotch. And you are good United States. Suppos'n that I don't want three additional hands, but only, say, one or two?"

"Then you don't get any. We always ship together."

"I see— the Three Musqueteers. Well,  I guess if that's the case, we can stretch a point and ship the three. Toughs we want, and toughs you look."

"Comments on our personal appearance," said Fairfield, "are apt to precipitate an outbreak of violence. We're here to find out what's the job that's offered. We sign on blind to nothing. So perhaps you'll kindly explain."

"I'm not going to put myself blind into the hands of you ducks," said the square faced man, "and don't you think it."

"I hate tu quoques," said Fairfield, "though probably you don't know what they are. But we've never signed on yet without knowing the exact limits of the job ahead, and your looks encourage one to break the rule here. So if you've nothing further to add we'll go."

It looked like a deadlock, and the three were already moving truculently towards the door. But one of the sitters at the table saved the situation. "Better tell them, George. They're sure enough toughs."

George, who was the square-faced man, shrugged his shoulders. "Well, it's your necks as well as mine, and if you care to take the risk, I'll stand in. See here, you three gents. Our platform in this lodge here is that the rich are too rich. We hold that we ought to ease them of their surplus boodle for the sake of their own souls, and incidentally we bring the confiscated property into the lodge's treasury to meet expenses."

"This sounds like a burglary proposition," Fairfield commented. No one could tell from his tone whether he approved of it or not.

"We've got in mind," said the square faced man confidentially, "a party that's going to dance on Mr. Vanderfeller's yacht. Nobody except millionaires and their wives and daughters admitted. And as they have jet the press know all about it beforehand, each will try to whip the other in jewel display. How's that?"

"Ought to be some pretty girls there," said Fairfield.

"Do you propose to pirate this yacht?" asked Rakes.

"Why yes," said the square-faced man. "They run down to Long Island Sound, come to an anchor, and dance on deck under the moonlight; that's the programme. We charter a tug, run up alongside, and play a hold-up game. If we show a dozen gens with the right sort of toughs behind them, I guess they'll not call that band. If they do, some of them will get it where the chicken got the axe. Anyway the pool will be ours. We disable the engines, run back to N'York on the tug, realize on the boodle, and scatter. I guess all the members of this lodge will be set up for life."

"What about the women?" asked Fairfield. He was always a lady's man.

The square-faced man shrugged his very square shoulders. "If any one wants to have his fun with them, I shouldn't interfere. Vanderfeller's yacht isn't fitted with wireless, and once we've got her, and they can't communicate, I'm quite ready to make a night of it if opinion runs that way."

"Then if that's the case," said Fairfield, "you may count me and my mates out of it. I know the game you swine have got on. You've brought us here under false pretences. Toughs you asked for, and as toughs we offer ourselves. But it's gory pirates you're wanting, and there we pass. Come boys, we'll git out of here before that chap's breath poisons us quite."

Now perhaps Fairfield's speech was unduly provocative; perhaps the square faced man decided that the three firemen knew too much to be let go safely. Anyhow he declared that he would take language like that from no man living. On the word he pulled from a drawer in the table a long barrelled revolver, flung it up. and shot. It is probable that the Englishman, who had a shrewd idea of what was coming, would had dodged the bullet; but Rakes at any rate knew his own countrymen thoroughly. At the first whiff of war Rakes whipped out the chair from beneath one of the men who sat at the table, swung it, and brought it crashing down on the square faced man's I head and shoulders. Then every man in the room stood up and lugged out a weapon.

But the fight was stayed. On that instant the lights went out, and the room snapped into inky darkness.

Sounds ceased. Even breathing seemed to stop, so intently did each man try to conceal his whereabouts from his neighbour. Instinctively the three firemen had backed up against the wall, but in the preliminary scuffle they had separated, and, though when the light went out they tried to rally on Fairfield, they could not tell if they had succeeded in this, and for anything each man knew he might be rubbing shoulders with an enemy, who stood on that  instant ready to strike.

The tension was awful. In a fight any one of the three would have shown reckless bravery; they were used to fights; but this waiting among that murderous crew in the dark taught them all something very near akin to fear.

But the fear was not all on one side. The man next to the Scot gave a little tremulous sigh, lurched, and slid clumsily to the floor. The strain had been too much for him, and he had fainted. Something had clattered down with him. Clydebank groped with his foot, found it, stooped, and put his hand on a revolver. At the same moment some one else clutched for the same weapon. The hands met. They drew apart, as though they had stung one another. But the Scot held on to his spoil.

Each of the firemen expected at any moment the stab of a knife or the sear of a bullet, and, though they themselves were armed, they dared not use their weapons for fear of hitting one of themselves.

It was Rakes who broke up the meeting. The lodge room, when they first came into it, was lit only by electric light; but to Rakes came the idea that it probably had windows somewhere. He fumbled behind him where he stood, and found a button; fumbled again and found another. He turned these, and with a rapid swing threw open the shutters and flung up the sash behind.

The gush of daylight dazzled every one in the room, the two other firemen equally with their enemies. They blinked and saw Rakes drop on to the window sill, holding there by his hands, so that his head alone was visible.

"Now then," said Rakes. "Let my mates go and I'll let you go. Hold them for another second, and I'll call the cops."

The Englishman and the Scot needed no further invitations. They walked through that hostile room, and reached the door, and no man stayed them. They walked down the dirty stair, and out through the barber's shop, and when once they were clear Rakes dropped down to the pavement beside them. A mob of six people watched the performance with languid interest, and no more came. The-dwellers in Silk street were used to these little eccentricities.

But the three firemen knew their New York, and the extent to which vengeance can be pushed there. They abandoned the wages that were due to them for the ferry, and had shipped in a Liverpool-bound boat before an hour was past.

The Scot and the Yankee were for dropping the matter there and then, but Fairfield sent a picture postcard which had the effect of postponing Mr. Vanderfellers moonlight dance on the yacht. But then Fairfield always was a lady's man.

_________________

7: The Sandbaggers in Liverpool

Observer (Adelaide) 14 May 1910

FAIRFIELD drew away his hand from the man's head, looked at his reddened fingers, and was about to wipe them on his breeches.

Clydebank reached swiftly forward and caught him by the wrist. "You fool," said the Scot, who was always the cautious one of the trio, "you fool, don't you see that this is a hanging job for somebody? Do you wish to be the man that's got to swing?"

"The chap's head is simply smashed to a jelly," said Fairfield thoughtfully.

"Why repeat the obvious?" asked the Scot. "He isn't the first deader you've seen, and, as I say, the neighbourhood's dangerous. Let's get out of here."

"I wonder," said Fairfield, "who did it, and why, and how the poor beggar got into an empty house like this."

"You make me mad," said Clydebank. "We're known to have dossed in this empty house for a week, we've all of us hard characters to fall back on, and if the police look in here they'll prove this murder against us, as sure as there are sandbaggers in Liverpool. Every moment we slay here's dangerous. I feel you we must clear out this very moment."

"Too late," said Rakes. "Here are the cops."

An inquisitive young policeman opened the door and stepped into the room. A second policeman followed him. (The police patrol that particular district of Liverpool in pairs.)

"Now, what are you blokes up to?" asked the young policeman, and then added, "Hullo." when he saw the body on the floor. His mate was a man of more resource. He saw the body, gauged the fighting capacity of the three firemen, and made a dive for his whistle to call for assistance. But here he was forestalled by Bakes. That very experienced little American had a full appreciation of the advantages of freedom. He snatched the whistle with his left hand and pocketed it.

"And now." said he. "if you attempt to pull out your club and try to fan any of us three here, I'm going to gouge your eye out. I can see the sight of that cold meat's upset you. Well— we didn't make it. It's a legacy from some party, name unknown."

Policeman, the younger, had lugged out his notebook, and was comforting himself by making copious entries. Policeman No. 2 was the older, and perhaps the bolder hand. "You've got to come to the station with us and explain. If your explanation's good, you won't be kept long. But I must warn you that anything you say now is liable to be used afterwards in evidence against you."

"Quite so," said Rakes. "Then you may jot down that you two bobbies will presently go to the hot place if you interfere with us three live men in any form whatever. So far as we are concerned, you may have the deceased to make any investigations upon that you choose."

"Resisting the police in the execution of their duty is a thing you'll be made to smart for. There's been murder done, and I charge you with being accessories. Gimme back my whistle―"

It was a jiu-jitsu trick that Rakes employed, and the older policeman fell heavily and lay quiet. His mate struggled gamely, but he, too, presently sat on the floor, with his wrists fastened behind his own back with his own handcuffs, and his notebook and a handful of cotton waste crammed into his mouth, and held there with a fireman's sweat-rag.

"Now," said Clydebank to his two friends, "you'll probably see the soundness of my advice, and clear out of here. These intelligent gentlemen on the floor are quite convinced that we did the murder."

"Their feelings don't concern me," said Fairfield, "but as the person here with the smashed head seems in a way to have made himself our guest, I propose we should investigate his affairs a little before we leave. If he's had his head caved in as the result of a more or less fair scrap, we won't interfere further. But if, as I guess, he's been sandbagged from behind by some of the Liverpool dockrats, why, then, we'll do our best to square up his account for him. By-the-way, he was alive not very long ago. He's barely, cold yet. First of all, we'll see if he can give evidence on his own behalf."

He knelt by the body and began systematically to go through the pockets, which were empty. Evidently some very experienced searcher had attended to those already.

"Perhaps the gentleman carries his name inside his collar," suggested Rakes.

"I'll look," said Fairfield, and presently announced that it was a "Court Model, sold by or manufactured by a firm la Cheapside, London. "But that's a clue," he added, "for the police to amuse themselves on afterwards. We won't trouble to go into that now. My idea of the gentleman is that he was a foreigner, and from East Europe somewhere. There are those boots, for instance. Those were never made in the British Isles. Let's see if they've got a maker's name inside."

But here a surprise awaited them. The first boot that was dragged of the stiff, unwilling foot displayed not a maker's name indeed, but a limp Bank of England five pound note, pressed hard against the sole. Inside the other boot were two other notes of the same value.

"H'm," said Fairfield doubtfully, "I suppose it's bad form to rob a corpse."

"Certainly," said Clydebank. "And I don't care a continental about form. Besides, we must have cash to get out of this, and they'll do to pay a tram fare. Hand over."

"If we take a fee from the fellow," said the Englishman, "the least we can do is to find out who sandbagged him."

"And toted him here after the operation," added the little Yankee. "Look, there are the marks all the way from the door, drip, drip, drip, along the floorboards. They sandbag a man in tins neighbourhood as soon as look at him. But why not leave him in the street where he fell? Why did they risk walking into a cop by bringing him along here?"

"Because they'd got a down on us," said Clydebank.

"Gee!" said the Englishman. "I wonder!"

"Wonder what?"

"We've been in Liverpool four days. Barring— well, barring girls— how many other acquaintances have we got between us?"

"Depends what you call acquaintances.

"How many people have we come in contact with, if you .prefer it that way?"

"Gosh!" said Rakes, "I see what you're driving at. Those Russian fellows."

"They were Poles, I kept on telling you."

"Well, Poles, if you like; it's all the same. We did 'em up good and proper last night when they were trying to knife that fellow in the Three Puncheons."

The Scot licked his lips reminiscently, "It was a good fight. I knocked my man's three teeth down his ugly throat. I thought I'd seen yon corpse's face before. It was the man we interfered to help last night. He'd a beard on then, and clean-shaved now, but it's the same face; come now, isn't it?"

"I was too much in an after-dinner mood last night to remember," said the Englishman.

But little Rakes, with all his other faults, always kept sober, and he corroborated Clydebank s word. "It's the same man without the big black beard," he said.

"Ah," said Fairfield, and twirled his moustache, and addressed the blue clad prisoners on the floor. "Then you two bobbies may stay here to guard the deceased, and we'll depart. Presently, if we've lucky, we'll bring you some undesirable aliens who will be much better in your charge than loose about the streets of Liverpool."

NOW as to the details of what followed I have only been able to gather the outlines. Certainly the firemen went to their previous house of call, the Three Puncheons, and certainly they met there an assorted batch of Poles (or as Rakes will persist in calling them, Russians). I think they all fell to drinking, except perhaps Rakes; and probably the anarchists, if that is what they were, fell to boasting in their cups. But certainly the three firemen decided that two of the Poles had done the sandbagging, and after knocking these senseless, proceeded to clear their Polish companions out of the tavern with stools and pewter pots. At the end which performance, as the landlord, a lusty ex-marine himself, proposed to take a hand in the scuffle, they offered to shove themselves off, and carry with them the two men who lay stunned on the floor.

The landlord on his part wished for nothing better; the tavern, it appeared, was a "marked house"; if the police came and saw such evidences of a row, he would have his licence endorsed; and he would take it as a favour if the firemen would remove themselves and their opponents forthwith. They might go and jump into the Mersey for all he cared, though their bodies would certainly pollute even that unsavoury stream.

Clydebank was for staying on to convince the truculent landlord of their gentility; for Clydebank was always a glutton for a fight. And as a general thing Fairfield aided and abetted him. But this time the Englishman put business first. He felt he owed, so he said, a sort of debt to the gentleman with the broken skull whose £5 notes they had annexed, so he and the Scot shouldered the two Poles, and the Yankee, with an empty whisky bottle for a club, acted as rearguard to the procession.

In this order they came to the unlet house, passed in through the door by the key they had made, relit their candle, and found the dead man and the two angry policemen still in possession.

"These two undesirable aliens did the trick to the party on the floor there," said Fairfield. "If you bobbies run them in, and cook up enough evidence to get them hanged, in due time you will get promotion, both of you. And on the strength of that, I suppose, you don't want to see us three again?"

"You must come with us to the station," said the elder policeman doggedly. "You have been obstructing us in the performance of our duty. I give you warning that anything you may say will be used in evidence―"

Little Rakes viciously clapped back the gag into the elder policeman's mouth.

"I've a good mind," he said, "to give you a silencer."

"Not at all," said Fairfield. "He's merely a specimen of the ordinary British bobby acting according to his traditional lights. Good Lord, I wonder how many handcuffs these Roberts carry."

So they handcuffed the two Poles to the wrists of the man they had murdered, in to one another; blew out the light, and departed.

An hour later, from a penny-in-the-slot call office, they rang up a police station and gave news of two constables who would, by that hour, probably be  reported as missing.

And a little later still they were travelling northwards to Greenock, with the view of shipping foreign from that crowded and unlikely port.

_________________

8: The Squint-Eyed Crimp at Las Palmas

Observer (Adelaide), 21 May 1910

"I COUNTED eight rats run across my bed last night," said Rakes, "and then I wakened and got up, and sat till daylight in a chair."

"If it'd been me," said Clydebank, "I shouldn't have known they were real rats, "And should probably have had my nose chewed off. Where's Fairfield!"

"I saw him last playing about with that girl with the high comb stuck in her bade hair and the grey mantellina. I saw him kiss the end of her nose, and get a mouthful of powder, he pretended to choke with coughing, and that made her mad, and as the girl I'd been dancing with got mad too, and wanted to chip in; I'd all my work cut but to keep her pacified. Lord, but these Canary Spanish women have got voices like peacocks. You never shifted from the bar all the evening from what I saw."

"I did not," said the Scot. "I prefer even Las Palmas whisky to the best kind of skirt, and I speak from deep experience of both. But what happened to Fairfield?"

"Lost sight of him from then onwards. When I'd quietened my little piece he'd disappeared with his, and though I danced on till those fellows put up their guitars and turned off the light he never cast up in that room again."

"Rum I should find myself here alongside you. I'm sure I don't know which way I navigated after I left the posada."

Clydebank lifted his nose and sniffed. "What's the perfume? Have they got a week-old corpse concealed in the premises? Or perhaps the burying ground's handy? I see we're just under the lee of the cathedral. They bury in stone ovens here, above ground, and if you don't pay the rent they chuck out your bones to make room for the next man's. But the cemetery's out on the Telde road. What you smell is the baccalhao merchant's store next door."

"Baccal— which?"

"Dried fish, if you like it better. They catch it from schooners between here and the African coast, and they dry it in parts. What isn't dried gets fruity. An odd dish now and again, cooked in Canary style, is rather good. If you use it as a regular diet you generally get leprosy. Now, then, we're getting away from the point. Question is where's Fairfield? It strikes me it's about time we hunted him up."

"What do you propose to do? Go and ask the Governor of the island for his address?"

"I'll do that if we're put to it. But in the meanwhile, if we get hold of some of the girls we were dancing with last night, probably they'll tell. We shall have to pay a hit for the information. So, as we've made you banker, I'll trouble you to fork out."

The Scot made a gesture of indigence.

"You'd better have kept your wages in your own pockets, mannie, and risked the notes among the girls. Some of the money, I'll admit, went down my throat last night in the shape of that variety of sulphuric acid called Scotch whisky here in Las Palmas, But towards the end of the evening I was a bit blind to the world, and I fancied some one must have levied a forced loan. I say, Rakes, did any one offer you a billet last night?

"Sea billet, or shore?

"Did any one offer you an engine-room billet? Sort of second engineer on a two man launch, so far as I recollect."

"No."

"Well, as far as memory serves, it was shoved at me. Twelve pound a month and all found, is the tale—well, that sticks in my head."

"Sounds a bit improbable."

"It ought to occur to your memory," said the Scot, judicially, "that I've no imagination. I can't dream improbabilities, ever when I've the whisky in me. The man was probably a liar. He'd a squint, and he said he commanded a steamboat of sorts, and he certainly offered that £12 a month. I don't argue he had the boat, but I do affirm he made the offer. I can tell you also that he decided I was over keen or the drink for his berth, and I saw him go to Fairfield. What he said there I cannot tell you. But before sweet sleep my eyelids closed, I saw Fairfield try to knock him down."

"Well, what next?''

"I woke up in this rat-hidden lodging, the thirstiest fireman in the City of Las Palmas."

"Well, what about Fairfield?"

"I've got to the end of my tale," said Clydebank, doggedly. "There may be a  moral, but the grey matter in my skull is in a fine confused condition at the moment that I can't see it."

"I suppose." said the Yankee, gloomily that you're hinting that Fairfield has had this soft offer made to him, and has accepted, and is off to sea on his own."

The Scot thumped, the dirty tab! violently. "Don't you believe it for a moment. We three wasters have shipped in the stokeholds for five years together, and we're going to stick to one another till the time comes that we get knocked on the head ashore or are hove over into the ditch with the regulation two firebars at our heel as sinkers if the call arrives when we happen to be at sea. My pal has not gone off to a lone billet on his own— willingly."

"What, do you think he's been shanghaied?"

Clydebank shrugged after the manner of the Spaniard. "I think nothing. I never had many brains, and what I have now are hung in alcohol like those unpleasant examples you see in the anatomical museum at Aberdeen. I've given you facts, aw there—my talent ends."

Now, the little Yankee, with all hi faults, very seldom drank to excess. Among  his few lean virtues sobriety stood out in glittering solidity. So he chewed upon the cold cigar that was gripped between his teeth, and squeezed his brain for an idea.

Inside the lodging the twang of a guitar came from the distance, with the accompaniment of castanets and cigarette smoke. And from without, the scent of baccalhoa drifted in, rank and penetrating. A rat, encouraged by the silence, peeped out from the wainscoting, and stared at them with beady eyes.

Clydebank saw the rat and shuffled uneasily in his chair.

"It's all right," said Rakes. "It's a real rat and a personal friend of mine. He won't bite you if you'll answer me one civil question. Could, you recognise you party with the squint who made you the twelve pound offer?"

"I  could," said the Scot.

"Then come out, and let's turn round Las Palmas till we find him. "It's on the  cards," he added as an inducement, "that if we look thirsty enough somebody'll stand you your morning. There are a lot of skips ashore."

With industry they went round the many fondas and posadas of old Las Palmas; then they walked north and looked in at the Metropole and the Catalina, and were not received with enthusiasm, but looked too truculent to throw out, and by degrees, walking over the sand beside the steam tramline, they came to the Isleta, and went round the new and glaring saloons of the puerto. But nowhere did they find the man with the squint, and Rakes was beginning to equip his Scottish shipmate with an imagination begotten of whisky when they ran across the man himself, walking out of the office of the Lanzerote Coaling Company.

"This," said Clydebank, "is him," and linked his arm with that of the squint-eyed man. "Take hold," he added, and Rakes annexed the man's spare arm.

"Now," said Clydebank, "having archaeological tastes, we'll inspect the Guanche Caves in the mountain over there on the Teneriffe side, and if the Captain here kicks he'll go home with a broken neck. I wish to hear more of his high-class offer."

The man with the squint sized up his companions, and decided that whatever recompense the Grand Canary authorities dealt out to them later on, he would be the immediate sufferer if he failed to do their bidding, and said, "Very well, boys, lead along."

Wherefore to the crumbling mummy caves they walked, over the soft, wind-blown sand.

"I'm sure," said Rakes, when they got there, "you're the sort of pirate that always carries a gun. So, if you don't mind, while I twist your arm thus"— the squint-eyed man let out a sudden shriek— "my pal shall disarm you. And now that we have the revolver, I'm going to dig right here under the hot blue sky, and near that cactus, and make you into cold meat with, your own revolver, and plant you under the sand all shipshape and British fashion, if you don't here and now ante up the third man of this partnership, who's an Englander with a fine taste for petticoats, and who's been missing since last night."

"My good man, I haven't got him in my pocket."

"The grave will presently yawn," said Rakes; and cocked the revolver, while Clydebank dropped to the ground, and with his hands began to scoop a trench."

"I've got to think this out," said the squint-eyed man doggedly.

"You will find," said Rakes, "that hurry is the essence of the contract."

Clydebank acted as the mere machine, he dug stolidly at the grave, and did not  interfere, and it is probable that his action ate into the prisoner's nerves.

"Here," he said presently, "drop that. You man is at so-and-so," and named an address.

"Ah!" said Rakes doubtfully, "of course that may be so. Clydebank, here's the gun. You stay here on guard. If I don't turn up with Fairfield in tow within the space of four hours, just plant the Captain in that hole, and come on to the city, full steam ahead, to rejoin. So long for the present."

Clydebank, kept the revolver. Rakes, on the strength of five pesetas borrowed from the squint-eyed man, journeyed back to Las Palmas in a tarlana drawn by a collar-galled mule. The address which he carried was also in that shady neighbourhood at the back of the Cathedral.

The little Yankee had a difficulty in gaining access to the house, and but for the fact that the knife the Canario carries in his sash is of the clasp variety (in contradistinction to the sheath) might very possibly have been hurt. But by the time the landlord's elaborate weapon was opened for action it had changed ownership; and the landlord went in to do the honours of the house with the point of his own blade tickling him between the shoulders.

Fairfield, when his friend met him, had no active ill treatment to complain of.

"That blighter with the squint," said Fairfield, "had derided I should sail with him as second engineer.  When I decided I wouldn't, I got chucked into this cellar. There was a lady in the case, but she's rather a dear in other ways, and so we'll leave her out of the count. But I want to give Capt. Squint a talking-to."

"I'll arrange that for you presently," said Rakes. "But I don't see what active harm the man's done you. This room's comfortable enough."

"It's my cabin companion who's so unpleasant, poor chap," said the Englishman, and pointed to the opposite corner.

Rakes followed his glance, and was seized with a fit of shuddering. Seated by the wall was a poor wretch, of a leper, fingerless, footless, and with a face of horror.

Out in the street, it was Fairfield who kept his coolness. 'You needn't keep on shuddering so. They told me I should nave to stay in the same room with that poor devil till I consented to sign on. But I didn't funk it one bit. I don't believe leprosy's catching unless you live on baccalhao. All right, I'll go and have a hot bath with carbolic in it if you like. And then I guess we'll run down to the islets and skin El Capt. Squinteye down to the bone."

One gathers they did that last pretty effectively, for the three of them lived up at the Monte for the next week in splendour, and they had no other resources that I know of.

___________________

9: The Yacht Repairing Slip at Glasgow.

Observer (Adelaide), 21 May 1910

CLYDEBANK leaned over the Broomielaw Bridge, and spat into the yellow Clyde.

"I come from here," said he, "and though I wear a purser's name there are people in Glasgow who know me still, and who remember me as the son of my parents. Now, my parents are decent people, living out at Kelvinside, and though I may have my private differences with them, I'm not going to shame them publicly in by proving that I am alive, and appearing in a Glasgow Police Court. So, if you two ducks want to kill this policeman, you must count me out of the entertainment."

"I don't see it matters," said Rakes. "If one's people have chucked―"

"Dry up," said Fairfield. "Clydebank's right. Man has to behave himself decently on his own dunghill. You wouldn't care to go back and paint Philadelphia red. And if you did, you ought to feel mighty well ashamed of yourself. As for our two selves here in Glasgow, that's a different matter. That Robert, who gave the evidence in the Police Court, lied, and Rakes and I got fined good and hard accordingly, and the Robert will get earmarked for promotion to sergeant by the Glasgow authorities: but by the natural laws of human justice we must take it out of the imaginative brute somehow, or leave the Second City in the British Empire with a bad taste in our mouths. Clydebank my son, we'll meet you at the Shipping Office at. 8 a.m. to-morrow, or if we find it unhealthy (after what is to come) to ship from here, we'll send a party with a white swab in Mb hat to give you news of our whereabouts. Permit me, then, to offer our distinguished salutations. Be sober, unenterprising and quiet for the rest of the evening; keep out of even the usual music hall, and you will be dull and virtuous. We tear ourselves from the light of your Excellency's presence till to-morrow."

Now the Glasgow police are physically a fine body of men, and kidnapping one of them is not a game for the amateur. It is true that Messrs. Fairfield and Rakes were two of the toughest specimens who ever earned wages in assorted stokeholds, but the job was a hard one, even for them.

However, by care they managed it. They waited for their policeman in the gloom between two lampposts. Rakes jumped on to the man's shoulders, and, clapped a handful of roadmaker's pitch into his mouth. Fairfield slipped a running bowline over one wrist, and quick as light twitched it up to the other wrist and made fast. They had a barrow and a tarpaulin in the shadow of the adjoining close, and in one of these and under the other they were, fifteen seconds after the first assault, wheeling their captive openly enough past his fellow-officers down the middle of the street.

At the original planning out of the scheme they had been minded to tip their victim, once they had caught him, down the open hatch of a small steam coaster, which had been loading bags of meal for the Outer Hebrides, and whlch was due to drop down river on the first of the morning's ebb. But they had been over long m making their capture. The coaster had sailed, and the scheme of giving the imaginative policeman a free trip to the Outer Isles was out of the question.

They stood on the string piece of the ! wharf looking down at the empty berth, and from the unseen water that tinkled and swirled beneath them endeavoured to find inspiration.

"I've a great mind to sling him into the river, and be done with it," said little Rakes, savagely.

"Not a bit of it," said the Englishman. "We don't lynch men merely for being liars in Great Britain, or otherwise we should lose half our population. We aren't all truthful people, like you are in the States."

"You leave the United States alone."

"Please God, I will, this round. But about, this policeman, now. I think we ought to make the punishment somehow fit the crime. H'm, let's see."

"Oh, get on, or we shall have the cops down on us."

"Unluckily, my invention has stopped for the moment. What can give the necessary hint? What are those works across the river?"

The little Yankee peered through the night. "Seems to me like some sort of repairing slip. Looks like a yacht hauled up on those ways."

"And here's somebody's boat nuzzling the foot of these steps. Let's carry Robert on board, and ferry him across the bonny blue Clyde, and prospect."

They did this, landing on the slime-covered slip, and making fast the boat's painter.

"You stand by her," said Fairfield, "and if anybody comes to interfere, slip your painter and drop down stream on the ebb out of sight. I'll go and scout for her."

He went up over the muddy ways still without any clear scheme in his head. Above him towered the fine curves of a 400-ton steam yacht. A ladder reached to her rail. He ran up it with the idea of seeing if there was a watchman on board, and, if not. of fetching the stolen policeman, and slowing him in an empty stateroom, to be left till called for. To tell truth, he was getting rather sick of that policeman by this time.

The yacht's decks were foul with Glasgow smoke, and were littered with repair work and tools. But they were deserted. There was no- watchman. Fairfield went round and tried the door handles of the deckhouses. All were looked. So was the engine-room hatch. So was the companion aft: So also was the fore companion. But when one after another he tried the engine-room skylights he found that underneath one the clamping screw had not been driven firmly down into its notch, and by putting out his strength managed to raise it.

Even as he did so there sprang out from within a desperate man, who clutched him by the throat, and with evil fingers tried hard to strangle him.

The attack was unexpected enough, but the fireman who has worked on many seas, and rioted in many seaports, grows quick to emergencies. By a jiu-jitsu trick that was known in these islands before Japan was heard of, Fairfield sharply lifted his knee, and the man let go his hold, and dropped to the deck like an empty sack.

Fairfield, after the manner of the stokehold, put boot toes into his ribs with brisk energy.

"Get up and tell your business," he recommended. "If you lie there malingering, I'll stamp the life out of you. Why were you on watch down below?

"I wasn't on watch" the man gasped. "Aren't you the watchman?"

"I'm here to ask questions, not to answer them. What's your game?"

"So help me, boss, I brought them all here with me. I haven't stolen a thing from this packet; no, nor from this yard either."

"Where did you get it, then?"

"From down the river, I haven't done this yard a bit of harm."

"Where did you stow the stuff?"

"Will you let me off if I tell?"

"I'll kick the end of your backbone through your hat if you don't. Go ahead."

"I was stowing them in the oil columns when I heard your footsteps along the decks."

"'Are they all there?" ''

"I tipped the balance into the waste locker."

"I see. Well, just you wait here off deck till I go below and see if this yarn's true. D'ye hear me? Don't you dare to move. G-r-r-r!"

Fairfield slipped through the engine room skylight, and made his way via the low pressure cylinder head on to the ladder, and so down to the footplates. Old engine room instinct took him to the hollow iron standard which carried the ships store of lubricating oil, and the touch of his hand showed him a line running down into the depths. He hauled on this, and presently drew up the whistle of a launch, the case of a gauge glass, a brass belaying pin, a gunmetal sheave. And by the clink there was a further store to follow.

"Phew!' said Fairfield, ''so that's the game. I've dropped upon a brass thief, one of those paltry curs that goes round launches, and locomotives and winches and cranes, and steals the brass fittings to sell for scrap, and gets engineers and firemen into trouble. And this is his cache? Yes, and he's told the truth about the waste locker. He's got another half-hundredweight in there. Well, I'm not a censor of contemporary morals, so I shan't go out of my way to run him in— but— I wonder— well, now!"

The Englishman broke off, laughed, and smacked his thigh. Then he climbed up through the skylight to deck. An he had intended, the thief had saved him further trouble by vanishing into the night. So Fairfield slipped down the ladder, and walked to where the boat bumped quietly against the end of the slipways.

In twenty words he told his plan to Rakes. "I said I wanted to make the punishment fit the crime. Whatever the final result to himself may be. I think we'll cure this Robert of giving false evidence, any way."

"Bet your life," agreed the little Yankee. "When they catch one of these sneak thieves that steal brass fittings along a dock side, the authorities always give him bad cold feet. Here, catch hold of his heels, and let's get the joker transhipped."

SO, once more, the unfortunate policeman enjoyed some rough transportation, and presently found himself lying on his back on the cold iron footplates of a four hundred ton yacht, which lay high and dry on a Clydeside slipway. His captors laid a trail of brass scran from him to the waste locker, and left, the end of the hauling line to the treasures in the oil column, where it could be seen. Then they pinned on to his chest a placard, which read, "He wouldn't share fair," and prepared to leave him.

Fairfield lit a match for final examination.

"H'm, you've scare in your eye, Robert. You're a fluent liar, as we both can testify, but if you do contrive to lie yourself out of this mess you'll probably be less inclined to bear false witness against gentlemen from the stokehold in the future. They'll be working on this packet soon, and by the time the men start in the morning, we'll have shipped. So goodby, Robert. We shan't meet again."

But, all the same, the two firemen did not go in person to meet Clydebank at the shipping office. They sent a messenger (who wore a white chrysanthemum in his cap) to carry news to Clydebank that they thought it best to ship from Leith.

They considered it safest not to lake chances of getting in the way of that ruffled policeman's vengeance— if he had contrived to explain himself clear.

________________

10: The Matter of the Half Camel in Mogador.

Observer (Adelaide), 28 May 1910

Clydebank walked stiffly through the stone arch of the Mogador custom house, because be happened to be carrying the barrel of a smuggled Marlin rifle down his trousers leg, and to the suspicious Moor who addressed him in Spanish he replied with a surly, "No savvy," and tried to pass on into the warm strong-smelling street

The Moor put a lean, brown hand on Clydebank's shoulder, and Fairfield, who was walking behind, set his eye on the angle of the Moor's chin, and drew back his heavy fist for a blow. In the decimal of another second the blow would have fallen, and then assuredly the soldiers in flowing draperies who sat round the Walls, and nursed the long guns between their knees, would have taken a hand m pie game. But Mrs. Horton skilfully intervened.

"Pooh," said she, "don't make trouble over nothing. I have provided myself with a permit for all my party. You will find it in that envelope."

The Moor s hand dropped off Clydebank's shoulder, and he took the envelope and made inspection. The soldiers round the walls grinned appreciatively, and the brown stone arch overhead rumbled to their chatter.

"This," said the Moor in Spanish, permission for four only."

"That is right," said Mrs. Horton. For these three firemen and myself. We shall return to the steamer before nightfall. Allah be with you in the meanwhile."

"What was the document? asked the Englishmen, as they walked off together down the hot main street of Mogador. "A five-dollar note."

"Four five-peseta notes," said the little woman. "The tariff for arm smuggling has grown high now that they are revolting up-country in Morocco. I call it cheap, too. Mr.— er— your American friend here has three holes in his pants, where the barrel of his rifle shows through, for any one that pleases to look. I call that asking for trouble. I suppose you know there's  a death penalty for smuggling arms of precision into Morocco just now?"

"Well, M'am," said little Rakes for himself, "you really couldn't expect me to put my best clothes on to be killed in. I beg your pardon, but is the party you expect to meet here a Jew?"

"A Yahoudi, yes."

"Well, there's a blighter on my starboard quarter in a black nightgown and a black scullcap working himself up into an apoplectic fit over some sort of a Morse code wink, and it might be a charily to save his life by turning round to acknowledge."

Mrs. Horton turned, caught the Jew's eye, and quelled him with a look. She had remarkably fine eyes, as Fairfield noticed, and he was a judge. Then she turned, and addressed all her attention to Fairfield. Women always were taken by Fairfield.

They walked on, the four of them, through the untidy main street of Mogador, through the varied smells, and under the warm Moroccan sunshine. A crowd, mostly of black-robed Jew boys, hung in their wake, and whined for alms, and on the shady side of the street, dodging in and out of the sweetmeat stalls, the leather Stalls, and the sherbet sellers, the big black Jew man of their earlier acquaintance kept them under ostentatious convoy.

High-caste Moors from Fez and wild-eyed tribesmen from the Sus country stared at them as they passed, supercilious camels tried to walk them down, and ahead of them danced a purple-black Senegambian intent on earning an alms. The three firemen marched stiffly, by reason of the rifle barrels down their trousers legs. But though the gait was one that men knew well in Mogador, no one took official notice, though a good many of these observant spectators after glancing at the firemen looked at little. Mrs. Horton and smiled. Evidently her face at least was not strange to them.

At last, just before they came to the further walls, they turned out of the souk, and entered a sheet of blind windowless houses. At the further end the black Jew pressed forward, and knocked at an ironstudded door—knocked with two longs and a short. A grilled peephole opened, and he was inspected, and then the door grated reluctantly open.

"Señora," said the Jew to Mrs. Horton, "I bid you enter. Your men can hand me over what they carry, and wait here till you tell them your pleasure."

"They will come in with me," said the little woman, and led the way through the door, through the warm, greasy-smelling house, on to the internal courtyard, where flowering orange trees in green tubs stood around the well kerb. There was a Madeira chair in the shade at the further side, and Mrs. Horton took it, and invited her escort to be seated also.

Fairfield laughed. "Our dispositions just now are unbending. But if you mean we may pull out the rifles we'd be glad."

"I think," said the little woman, rather nervously, "you'd better wait a minute. These Moroccan Jews are a bit untrustworthy, and I want to make sure all's right before we disclose too much."

And then, as if to give point to her words there came from the further door and across the hot sunshine of the courtyard a fever-shaken wretch, without bands, who thrust out the half-healed stumps of his arms for their inspection.

'What's broke? asked Bakes.

The man, as though understanding the tone, if not the words of the question, mumbled out a wail in Arabic. Mrs. Horton shuddered as she made translation— "He says he's been gun-running, too. I suppose the Kaid caught him."

"He didn't pay enough blackmail," said the practical Scot. "But, ma'm, if there's going to be trouble we'd better unlimber these guns. I can no' put up a good scrap mysel' when I'm trussed up like this. And I'm free to guess my mates are in the same box. It'd be a pity to handicap us if there's trouble coining. We're pretty fighters with our hands, all three of us."

"Trouble?" said Mrs. Horton anxiously. "Please don't suggest such a thing. This is the first time I've tried gunrunning. but I was assured when I was in Mogador a couple of months ago that everything would go through quite smoothly. If only the man I had dealings with then would turn up, I'm sure everything would he settled in a minute."

"Was he a Scorpion?"

"No, an Englishman. At least, he said he was an Englishman. But I should say he'd a good deal of Spanish blood in him. He was born, he said, at Gibraltar."

Fairfield laughed. "That's what we call a Scorpion. Rock Scorpion is the full title. And it he's like the rest of his breed, he's pretty hot stuff. Who was the black Jew, by the-way, who met us outside the custom house."

"His servant."

"I see.  Honesty wasn't written all over his face either. By-the-way, here he comes with tea."

The Hebrew brought a tray, with a 6-in. high table, and the paraphernalia of the Moroccan ceremonial meal. He poured out weak green tea into the cups, added to each a sprig of green mint, and as much sugar as the scalding water would dissolve. Then he handed them round.

"Gee!" said the thirsty Scot, as he wryly sipped the mixture, "I never knew there was such a fine argument against the errors of the Prophet Mohammed! Aweel, as long as there's whisky in the world, I'll remain true to the faith of my fathers. Gosh, but there's another poor mutilated brute showing his arm and foot stumps in that doorway."

Mrs. Horton shivered. "And that's for gunrunning, loo. Oh, I wish Mr. Delozo would come."

"Those," said the Yankee, "are, I guess, advance advertising agents. When the effect of them has soaked in your Mr. Delozo will turn up himself, and tell you he can't pay the price agreed on. He'll say there's been a slump in trade, and the risks have increased, and his family are poor, and he wants a pair of new boots himself, and won't you take 25 per cent, on account, and the balance on a bill at six months less the usual 15% discount."

"I shall be ruined if he does," murmured the little lady pathetically. "I was left very badly off, you see, and those rifles you three carry took up all the money I could scrape together. Mr. Delozo promised to pay me double what they cost in England, together with all my expenses, if I'd smuggle them ashore here."

"Ah," said Fairfield, "then I think if you will allow us, this firm will take a hand now on your behalf. It's not a lady's job exactly. Now, just turn your eyes half-right to that narrow window above the doorway. Is that your man?"

"Yes; that was Mr. Delozo. But I only caught just a glimpse of him."

"He's been dodging backwards and forwards all the time we've been here, watching us. Now I'm going to unburden myself of these trifles I've on my person— excuse me for a minute— so. You other two ruffians better do the same. You can have this odd rifle between you, and there are a handful of cartridges. I'll load up—: thus. Now, Mrs. Horton, if you will give me your bill, please, I'll go and present it."

Mrs. Horton from her dress extracted papers, and these Fairfield put in his pocket. "If I don't turn up in 20 minutes," he advised his friends, "you may start in any kind of fancy shooting game you like if they try to stop you, but get down to the steamer anyway, and clap Madame on board. After that you may smoke your pipes. In the meanwhile keep in the shade."

Fairfield, himself a tall, blue-clad figure, with a Marlin resting comfortably over his arm, went across the scalding sunshine of the courtyard, and through the dark-blue shadow of the doorway on the opposite side, and thereafter be was eclipsed for the space of nineteen aching minutes. One presumes he met Señor Delozo and did business with him, and, knowing the Rock Scorpion's shifty ways, and remembering always the portent of the two mutilated Moors, one wonders how the business was carried through satisfactorily. Details I do not know. I asked for them, but Fairfield uncivilly said they were no concern of mine.

But this I can record. He placed in Mrs. Horton's lap the bill for the rifles, together with the bill of costs, and enough French gold Louis pieces to liquidate both, and because that small lady was very nearly fainting from scare (although she said it was merely the heat) he counted the coins for her himself, and recklessly let the chink, chink, chink of them ring through that hot and dangerous courtyard.

"Is that the full tally?" he asked.

"It is. I can't tell you how much obliged I am."

"Then don't try. I've secured a job for our three selves. Mr. Solomon Delozo is moving out of here by the Dutch boat tomorrow, and he has given me two whole Spanish dollars because I said we three would carry his boxes on board for him. He seems to distrust his own compatriots as mozos somehow. Incidentally I may mention both the dollars are bad ones."

"The swine," said Rakes.

"Certainly. But we'll carry his bundles for all that."

"Good heavens, why?"

"Because I say so. Come on. Let's escort the lady back to our packet. We're to come back for the boxes after dark."

"I NEVER could understand," said Mrs. Horton when they were a day out from Mogador, and the steamer was snoring into the Trades, "I never could understand, Mr. Fairfield, how you could bring yourself to carry that fellow's trunks into the German boat when you knew the coins he gave you were bad ones."

"Well," said the fireman thoughtfully. "He'd annoyed me a good deal by the way he'd have swindled you if we hadn't turned up as bodyguard, so when we got his boxes outside the walls, we just dumped the truck that was in them on to the sand and were going to take them on board empty. But we found half a dead camel that dogs had left, and we filled them up with that. I should say that if the temperature's kept up in the Dutchman's hold , those boxes are getting fruity by now."

______________

11: The Trawler's Shell Chest in Fleetwood.

"WELL," said Rakes, with profound Yankee contempt, "and you call Fleetwood a flourishing British seaport. It's the worst back number I've steamed into yet."

In the whole of the splendid dock there was one timber barque, a doubtful-looking ex-yacht, and a couple of rust streaked steam trawlers. On one side the grain warehouse and elevator reared starkly against the grey sky, and in the railway's yards on the other flank a solitary shunting engine whistled for amusement in the loneliness. Fairfield, leaning over the rail, took off his hat at a passing nursemaid who smiled at him. After another pause of ten minutes Clydebank lifted his nose, and smelt at the air ostentatiously.

"I thought, at least, that the place would be full of trawlers," said little Rakes. "Why, there isn't even the smell of fish about."

"I was sniffing to see if I could catch the odour of whisky," said the Scot drily. "Yon dock official with the brass edges and the haughty neb no' looks to me exactly a teetotaller."

The dock official heard (as it was intended he should) and looked up savagely. "I'll come and break your dirty head for you if you don't keep a civil tongue in it," said he.

But the three firemen invited him on board with such unanimous cordiality that he thought better of it, and passed on his way muttering.

"If I'd my shoregoing suit bent," said Fairfield, "I'd take that nursemaid for a walk."

"If I wasn't too idle to step down to the wharf, I'd enjoy flinging that red-beaked official into the dock," said the Scot. "Lord, but it's a dreary place, this Fleetwood, these days."

They were in this mood, then, when the fisherman came upon them. He was a littlish man, with (as they remembered afterwards) rather a shifty eye, and he wore, round, him neck a fringe of red beard, but carried his chin shaven to a rosy pink.

"See any shells where you come from?" asked the fisherman.

"What's that, shells?"

"Just what I say; shells. I know nothing about them; I've not been two hundred miles from this coast in all my life. But I want to know about shells, and if they have any value. I thought you chaps, having travelled a bit, might know."

"There's a pearl shell in Torres Straits way," said Rakes, "and I believe that it fetches good money.  But Really oysters on the half-shell were about the only thing in that line that ever interested me, and they as much as anything else helped to kick me out of decent society into mixed stokeholds, and I haven't come across them, much lately."

"Shell or Sheol is a swear-word used by Lithuanian Jews," said the Englishman, as a useful addition to the conversation.

"There is also tortoise shell, which comes from Nicaragua way," said Clydebank. "Man, get on with your story. If there's money in it, we're interested. If there isn't, hand us in a pannikin of whisky, and we'll forgive you."

The fisherman flickered his eyes over the three. "That's just what I want to know— is there money in it? I think there is myself. But I'd like to have your opinion— you having travelled."

Rakes turned to his two friends. "Has His Nibs got 'em again, or what do you J suppose he's talking about?"

"Get on with your tale," was Clydebank's advice to the fisherman. "This is a dry ship, and we are apt to be impatient.

The man rubbed the pink end of his chin, and let his eyes roam away to the elevator.

"You see, gents, I've no great gift of expounding. We picked it up in the trawl off the end of St. Kilda bank, and my mates and me thought it might  have value. So we said nothing to the owners, gents, when it came to settling up for the catch, we thinking it didn't come under the head of fish or salvage. At least, not being able to put a name to it, we hoped it couldn't be classed as salvage. I hope you understand?"

"My poor head," said Rakes. "Of course, His Nibs is speaking quite plainly, and It's me that's gone melancholy mad."

"You'd better contrive to be more clear in your description," advised Fairfield, "or else go home and take something for it. Come, now, what was it you fished up? A bunch of shells?"

The fisherman looked obviously relieved.

"You might call it that." he admitted, "But if you'd come and see it for yourselves, I think that would be the best way. We have," he added as an after thought, "a jar of beer in the locker."

"Beer!'' said Clydebank, with a wry face.

"My friend." said Fairfield in explanation, conies from Glasgow, and accordingly , wears a copper stomach. Whisky polishes it, but beer causes corrosion, so he'll stay aboard here."

"I'll no desert ye," said the Scot. "Come along, boys."

So the three of them, in company with the man with the pink chin, presently found themselves in the triangular after cabin of the steam trawler, which was heated almost to asphyxiation point by a highly polished brass stove. The beer and four enamelled teacups were promptly put into use. Then with much mystery a fish trunk, packed with seaweed, was produced, and the host awkwardly indicated that his treasure trove lay therein. He was a man with a singularly small command of language, that fisherman, and his eye roved so much that one could not read from it much of what he was driving at.

Rakes regarded the fish trunk suspiciously.

"Are there lobsters under that Mister, or anything that will bite? Look here, we'll bar the confidence trick."

"Confidence trick?" said the fisherman dully. "I don't understand."

"I believe that's a solid truth. You are a good old genuine Britisher from away back, and are honest because you haven't savvy enough to be anything else. But as an expert in fish, ill ask you to pull away that seaweed yourself. We none of us want to have our delicate fingers bitten.''

"Oh, if that's all," said the host, and promptly clawed the seaweed out on to the cabin floor.

"There's no crabs in the box, if that's what you was thinking about. There's just this."

At "this" the three firemen stared with curious eyes. They saw at first glance a mass of shellfish, some shut, some open, which emitted a rather lively smell.

"Trawl pulls up rum things," said the fisherman.

"Where did you get it?"

"On what we call the fifteen-fadom bank," said the fisherman in unlucid explanation, "I was very near chucking it overboard at first, when it struck me it might have value. So I brought it along ashore. Excuse me a minute, gents, there's some one hailing me from deck."

"There wasn't any one hailing," observed the Scot when they were alone. He was always the cautious and the suspicious member of the trio.

"Old chap merely wanted to leave us alone, so that we could talk freely," said Fairfield. "Rather decent of him, I call it. Well, that's something more than an accretion of shells, I take it. Look, there's iron rust showing here and there."

"It's a box of sorts, covered over with shells."

"Then it's probably been in the water for a long time."

Clydebank picked up the mass and shook it.

"Listen, you blighters," said he. So they listened, and heard from within the box the muffled but unmistakable chink of metal upon metal.

"It might be money.".

"By gad! I've got it!" said Fairfield. "They're always dredging up Spanish Armada stuff along the coast. What price that being a treasure chest? Look out. Here's old whiskers coming down again. You leave me to deal with him."

"Excuse me being away, gents," said the fisherman. "Well, have you made out what kind of shells those are?"

"Look to us common enough shells."

"So they do to me. But I don't think they can be, and I'll tell you for why. There's a man on the wharf here. He's something in the harbourmaster's office, I believe; He looks at that lump, and he offers me a five-pound note for it straight away."

"Why didn't you close with him?" asked little Hakes with a sudden flash of suspicion.

"Mister, would you have done?" asked the fisherman, heavily. "Besides, I know nothing about shells. That's why I come and ask you— you having travelled."

Now, because it is unedifying to record the details of a haggle, I shall, by your leave (or without it) omit the record of what passed during the next two hours in that trawler's stuffy and overheated cabin. Suffice it that an embassy, consisting of Rakes and Fairfield, went back to their steamboat, to raise by means of sales, loans, blarney, and threats, every penny they could lay their hands upon. They left Clydebank in charge of the fisherman, and found that excellent Scot on their return overwhelmed by the fisherman's new demands.

"I'm beginning," said the fisherman, with his eyes on the middle of Fairfield's waistcoat, "I'm beginning to think that shell stuff must be more valuable than I calculated on, by the eagerness you gents show about getting hold of it, I must ask you a bigger price,"

"You may ask," said the little Yankee, 'But I guess you won't have. We hold you to the letter of your verbal contract given before witnesses. You must remember I was in the law once, though at present the stokehold suits my disposition better. Ten pounds you asked, £10 we've strained all our financial resources to scrape up, and £10 you've jolly well got to accept."

But still the pink-chinned fisherman was stubborn, and high waxed the argument, and I regret to have to put it on record that force was used before the deal was fixed up, and the three firemen regained the wharf with the shell-chest in their possession and left ten sovereigns behind them on the trawler.

Their own inquisitive firemen's forecastle was the last place for so delicate an operation as the broaching of a treasure chest, so they wrapped the mass of shells in some wisps of dockside straw, and tramped off with it through the unlovely Fleetwood streets till they came upon a handy sand dune near Rossall School, which gave the requisite concealment. And here, in view only of some inquisitive grey-headed crows and a lesser black-backed gull, they produced hammer and cold chisel, and very cautiously opened it.

Again I have to leave out of this tale a report of what they said, but the substance of it may be guessed when I state that the contents of the box were some extremely rusty pieces of iron scrap. It may be put on record that the elderly provincial person on the trawler had most scrupulously refrained from giving any warranty as to contents; indeed, had not described the goods as a box at all, but merely as a lump of shell; but the three firemen felt themselves to have been defrauded, and stated their opinion of the case with much length and profanity.

But it was Clydebank who put, perhaps, the culminating touch to their discomfort. Clydebank, cannie Scot that he was, could see siller even through the darkest cloud, and knew of a curiosity dealer in Blackpool who could certainly be humbugged into buying the box as a genuine relic of the Armada.

The proposition seemed, at any rate, plausible, so, not having money to pay fares by the electric railway, the three tramped sturdily across to Upper Town.

Again, however, was their enterprise frowned upon. The curiosity dealer (as dealers will) snorted when he saw the box.

"That ole thing!" he cried. "Buy that blooming fraud? Why, my good thirs, that's not Armada make. Those shells were stuck on mit thement yetherday. There's a fisherman at Fleetwood maketh a buthineth of turning those out whenever he can find a thucker to buy one "

"Here," said Rakes violently, "shut up, Sheeny. We've got to get back to Fleetwood."

But when, after the lapse of hours, they again arrived, weary and footsore, at that decayed seaport, they were merely in time to see their steam trawler warp out of the cockpit into the river.

It is pleasant to record that the pink-chinned man waved to them very cordially from the pilot house on the bridge. He seemed to preserve no animosity for the force that had been used on him to make him accept that £10.

_______________________

12: The Bastinado in Algiers

Observer (Adelaide) 4 June 1910

"IF A GOOD-SIZED earthquake was to come along," said little Rakes, looking up the hillside at the neat white houses of the city, "the whole of Algiers would slide off its perch and drop down into the harbour here."

"That would be a pity," said Fairfield. "Since the French have held it, there's some of the most attractive wickedness to be found in Algiers that's left to-day in all North Africa. I don't say the Spanish Jew women are as fine here as they are in Tangier—"

"Oh, give us a rest," said Clydebank. "You're always after the women. What's there to drink?"

"Red wine at nothing a glass, and find your own stomach ache cure, and for those who prefer it there's bad brandy. The local Frenchman, who's usually a wrong 'un that France is too hot to hold, drinks himself crazy on absinthe. Look here, let's go into the Jardin d'Essai and smell the Eucalyptus."

"Good Lord, what for?"

Fairfield smiled reminiscently.

"Pah," said Rakes, "I know. You once proposed to a girl there in your shady past.  'There's a nook among the palms, Where I held her in my arms, And we sniggered at the dimple on her chin.'— Never mind how the rest goes; we mustn't shock the Scottie. But, anyway, here are the three of is without a continental cent in bullion among us. and sick for a run ashore, how are we going to afford it?"

"There was once," said Fairfield, reminiscently, "a Scotch-French-Eurasian-Levantine-Arab woman, who kept a sort of candle and perfumery shop in the Souk el Attarin that I did a good turn to. You see, there was a chap trying to strangle her— but it's rather a complicated story."

"Well," said Rakes, who always liked to get quickly to the point, "you knocked him on the head, and so gained her eternal gratitude. Go on."

"I'm afraid," said Fairfield, with an awkward grin, "I rather wore out my welcome even then. We certainly might go and try and draw her, if nothing else offers. But the Souk el Attarin's a long way off. It's right up by the Kasbah, and it's a bit bf a grind climbing up those long steep cobbled alleys in this heat."

"All the same, we'll go," said Rakes, "because nothing better offers. But if your old woman turns out to be a frost, I shall just stand up on the nearest rock to make myself tall enough, and black your blooming eyes for wasting my valueless time. So lead on, Romeo."

They did not change to shore-going clothes, as for the moment they carried all their wardrobes oh their backs, but after a wash they went ashore, crossed the quays, stared at Marshal McMahon in the Place de la Republique, and then mounted the steep narrow streets which led towards the citadel, amid mingled scent of orange flowers and drains. Not long ago pirate Pashas had held a lively market there in assorted Christians, Fairfield; when it came to the point, had some hesitation about the street, and more about the shop, and they poked their heads into a dozen evil-smelling alleys and a score of black boxes of shops before they hit upon the right one. Even when they came to it the proprietorship seemed to have been changed. A large, hook-beaked, truculent Greek was in possession. who wore the handles of two long knives in his waistbelt, and the largest moustache on earth sprouting from his upper lip.

"I do not know you," he remarked unpleasantly. "I manage the business for Madame, with full powers, and if she owes you money I will not pay you."

The three firemen, recognising the probability of a row, instinctively ranged themselves in the best strategic positions for a combined rush. Somehow, even under the modern French orderly rule, Algiers always seems a city of violence and injustice. The Greek by way of acknowledgment dropped one brawny hand on to a knife-hilt. The street was dark, and, as it happened, empty, and it is quite possible that in another minute the little box of a shop might have been the scene of an ugly row.

But a voice from within saved the situation. It was a fat lethargic voice, speaking out of the blackness at the back of the shop, and its remarks were couched in an unknown tongue. The Greek had evidently received commands. Clearly he disliked them. Equally clearly he was in two minds about obeying. He held up a hand to the three firemen.

"Wait, if you plees," he said, and they granted him a truce. Backwards and forwards shot sharp question and lethargic answer into the darkness, the voice evidently demanding something which the Greek hated to concede. His prodigious moustache bristled upwards with annoyance till it almost touched the tops of his ears. And with national instinct his hands waved in unison with his expostulations. Algiers has always been a city of intrigue, but at last argument or reiteration won't the day, and, "She says," he observed ungraciously, "you are to come inside."

"Suppose you lead the way," said Fairfield, whose ribs tickled with the idea of getting a knife into them. The street was dark and narrow. The back of the little shop was as black as the pit. And the truculent Greek was the last man in the world to be suspected of honest intentions towards his visitors. Also, the atmosphere of the ex-pirate city even now makes its inhabitants look upon a little quiet assassination with a lenient eye.

They blundered down steps so worn that they resembled an inclined way, and the air that met them was rich with oil and savoury with the perfume of garlic. At the foot of the slope they turned through a horseshoe-headed doorway and entered a small room, which they went far towards filling. Its one occupant was an enormously fat woman, who had deposited herself, a mere mass of draperies and curves, on the divan which lay against the further wall. She made prompt and pungent enquiry as to which of her cherished ones it was that had called for her.

"It was I, my full-blown rose of the East," said Fairfield. He always had a way with him for women, whether their waists measured thirteen inches or three hundred. "Our old tank blew into Algiers here, and I hastened, as formerly, to throw myself at your charming feet."

"I don't think I ever saw you in my life before," the lady announced, after a cool inspection. "But that don't matter. l can make a use for you. In the meanwhile what have you come for? Money or a drink?"

"Your beaux yeux alone, tendril of my heart. But in the meanwhile, as you say, we are quite open to anything you can offer— even ventilation."

"You'll have to pay for your entertainment."

"Haven't I spent a lifetime in paying for my entertainment at the hands of your charming sex? That's why I always enjoy myself so much."

"Stephanopoulos," said the lady, "take them to the" (they missed a word or so here) "and give them the best you can provide."

In the wake of the truculent Greek they made their way through a further warren of old houses, peopled by rustling shadows and fruity odours. Finally they came to a narrow well of a courtyard, roofed by a pink-and-green striped awning, round the edges of which appeared narrow slices of cobalt sky far overhead. The windows that gave upon the courtyard were all high up and closely shuttered, and of other apertures there was the one door they came in it, which from its iron-bound strength was suggestive of the portal of a fortress.

"In about an hour," said the Greek, "I will send you refreshment," and left them, and slammed the door behind him.

"Curse that dago's impudence," said the little Yankee.

"Well, you could hardly suppose," said Fairfield, by way of apology, "that he kept a ready cooked meal up his sleeve like the person in the Arabian Nights. As this place doesn't run to a chair, I guess the tiles are warm enough to eat upon, so here goes for a siesta."

True to promise, within the hour a meal arrived. There were kybobs of  mutton, a plate of greasy polenta that looked like Yorkshire pudding, a large tray of elaborate tarts, and demijohn of Prussian-blue wine. The bearer of these dainties was a Moor, and he entered the courtyard hurriedly. Rakes, who was watching, fancied he saw the gleam  of a knifeblade spurring him on from behind, but the passage was dark, and he could not be sure. However, the ironbound door slammed behind him, and the Moor's knees plainly gibbered as he shuffled off his slippers, laid a carpet, and proceeded to spread out the meal.

"There's trouble brewing," said Clydebank, not because he disliked trouble, but because he was always the cautious one of the trio.

"I shouldn't wonder," Fairfield admitted. "That dear stout lady has always been surrounded by a nimbus of trouble ever since I've known her. She's quite one of the old style of Algiers citizens. Her ancestors, I should say, were some Bey's professional torturers. But in the meanwhile dinner cools."

This last fact was so obvious that they fell to without further argument, eating with their fingers in the absence of more modern tools, and drinking the wine in turn from the mouth of the demijohn. The Moor, in snowy jellab, waited on them with twittering lemon-coloured fingers.

"Have a pull at the demijohn yourself, old cock," said the Scot hospitably. "We don't want to keep all the stomach-ache to ourselves, and there's no one here that'll sing out in your kirk that you've looked upon the forbidden liquor."

But the Moor gave them clearly to understand that he was quite unworthy to drink with such distinguished effendis.

"That's very true," Clydebank admitted. "Still, if I were you I'd no' refuse a drink with your betters when it's offered. However, if you think the liquor will endanger your salvation hand me the demijohn. My soul's Scotch and tougher."

It was not till they had dined to repletion and lit their pipes that the letter arrived. It fluttered down through the hot air from one of the closed windows above, and though it was ill spelt and badly expressed they gathered the gist of its contents easily enough. The Moor who had waited on them was their hostess's enemy; she wished her guests to give him the bastinado: to be precise, 200 strokes lustily applied to the soles of his feet, "so that the meat be flogged from them down to the bone." If they objected to doing her this small service they might stay in the courtyard till they rotted. If they performed it they would have her thanks, and— the door would be unlocked.

The Moor, it was evident, guessed the drift of the epistle, and also Clydebank's nod towards a bundle of canes which stood propped up beside the door. He flopped to his knees, and with his lips began nuzzling the firemen's boots.

"Here, I say," Rakes expostulated, "drop that. If you are fond of the taste of  blacking, lick your own. I wonder why the old woman's got her knife into you?"

"Not knowing Arabic," said Fairfield, "you'll have to wonder. But still I don't feel inclined to give the poor beggar a hiding on spec. Nor do I intend to get into trouble on board the boat by outstaying our leave."

"Good Lord, but how get out?"

"The lowest of those windows strikes me as being about 20 ft. above the ground level, if Mahomet here, and Clydebank stand beneath and embrace firmly, and I climb on to their shoulders and stand on their heads, and then Bakes climbs up and stands on mine— and we don't fall down and get hurt, why, then he should be able to get his fingers on the sill. After that, if he doesn't get his throat cut on landing "

"You leave that to me," said Rakes. "Make your ladder."

They did this, and not being acrobats damaged one another's heads and shoulders severely, and had some nasty falls before the little Yankee finally got aloft. But he reached the window at last, tore open the shutter and found— an empty room. By whisper and gesture he told them they must make a rope, and so they stripped the Moor of his white robes, and tore these up into strings, which they laboriously plaited into sennit. Then one by one they scrambled and were hauled up to the window, and by the time that all had landed they were pretty raw for revenge.

They went out looking for it; getting lost in a maze of old grimy rooms that smelt stale with the old lees of past sin; and finally coming upon the very iron-bound fortress-like door that led into the courtyard. It was unlocked and opened easily.

"Well, paint me blue!" said Rakes. "We took her word that it was locked."

"And never tried it," said Fairfield. "She always was a humorous little puss. Let's go and thank her for her kindness; and if I don't pull those big moustaches off that ugly looking Greek, I'll feel I've wasted my day's work."

But the Greek and Madame remained uninterviewed. They had taken advantage of the interval to make a midday flit. The Moor, by the help of an interpreter, pointed this out to the trio.

He said "he was the landlord. He seemed to think he had got off cheaply by being swindled only. Even to-day in Algiers they mix up a good deal of savagery with their humour among the steep streets of the old native city."

_______________________

13: The Lady in the Sack at Plymouth.

Observer (Adelaide) 4 June 1910

AS THE naval officer approached them, for the second time Fairfield turned suddenly round, and walked away from his companions at a rapid rate across Plymouth Hoe.

"He always is nervous about meeting people in England," said little Rakes,  but down here in Plymouth he seems to have worse jumps than usual. I wonder what he was before he drifted down into the stoke hold? British naval officer, do you suppose?"

"I don't know," said Clydebank, "and, during the four years we have been shipmates together I've carefully refrained from asking. When a man sails under an obvious purser's name— as I do thyself—it's always considered polite not to ask more about his shady past than he himself inclined to volunteer information on.  In the firemen's forecastle one takes a man on his face value, whether the said face is dirty or clean. Now come along to the old Eddystone, Fairfield said we were to rendezvous there if we parted convoy."

In due time Fairfield rejoined them, savage and glum, and the three resumed, their stroll. But nothing his friends could do would bring back his accustomed geniality

Bakes commented on the prettiness of a  passing nurse girl. Fairfield retorted by savagely cursing women as a sex. Clydebank jingled the shillings in his pocket and quoted the wise saying of the Governor of North Carolina about it bring a long time between drinks. The Englishman curtly consigned all liquors to a spot where report says they would command an extravagant premium above earthly prices.

And then, taking the initiative, he shook his fist with black fury at Plymouth Hoe, and the Sound, the warships at moorings in the Hamoaze, and broke out with a "Good God! if I don't get out of this I shall have to kill some one. Come along, you sweeps."

The other two went with him without complaint. They were accustomed within limits to give in to one another's moods, and they recognised that for some reason or other the Englishman was just now very deeply stirred.

At first the pace looked as though their walk was to take them out through the Three Towns and into the Devon country on beyond. But after they had left Plymouth behind them, and were nearly through Devonport, Fairfield steadied down, and began to examine the smaller by-streets one after another.

"If it's still here," be muttered once, "I shall be in luck's way."

Hakes asked, "If what's there?" But he got no answer.

But at last the Englishman came to a definite stop before a dirty window whereon was written in letters of paint, "Grand Gramophone Hall and Refined Entertainment." They were in a street of small unprosperous shops, and the Gramophone Hall itself looked to be in the last stages of financial decay.

"They've changed the style of it since my time," said Fairfield, "but they may have some of the old stock left. I want you chaps to let me have what money you've left."

They emptied their pockets for him without question or demur. It was one of the unwritten agreements of their comradeship that when one had money the other- could always have it for the asking.

"And now," said Fairfield, "I want you to go and prop up that street corner for the next hour if necessary. I'll rejoin you as soon as I can." And with that he opened the grimy door of the Gramophone Hall, and stepped inside, closing it after him.

"Got bad hot bearings over something," said the little Yankee. "Men look -like he does when they mean killing somebody. I wonder who it is?"

"No concern of ours," said Clydebank "till he asks us to chip in. Come and prop the corner."

And there for the next hour they stood smoking their pipes and watching the ladies and babies of sailor-town as they passed them, and repassed.

For the merchant seaman the thrift towns of Plymouth, Devonport, and Stonehouse are peculiarly unlike other seaports; their streets, and their shops, and their taverns are practically the freehold of the British Navy, and although the naval seaman and fireman curses the service industriously to his own fellows, he looks down very frankly on his brethren of the merchant steamers and (from the latter's standpoint) is in the habit of giving himself unpleasant airs. Except for purely naval purposes, merchant shipping is not encouraged to come inside Plymouth Breakwater.

Rakes (as they waited in stared-at loneliness) cursed Great Britain with point and fluency; the Scot with perhaps more accuracy and justice, cursed the British Navy, and when at last Fairfield rejoined them they were just in the mood for mischief.

"Here's most of your money hack," said the Englishman. "I got what I wanted I surprisingly cheap. We'll have to wait till dark before I can hand in my hill to Captain Crawford-Carr, and in the meanwhile we'll tramp out into the country, and I'll show you an old Devonshire pub where they keep the best cider on earth, and will probably feed us on hakey fish pie."

"Who's Captain Crawford-Carr?"

"A lying hound who did me a bad turn once that I can never properly square up with him for, though, please the pigs, I'll pay him a bit on account tonight."

"Party you saw on the Hoe this morning?" Bakes persisted.

"Yes, I did see him there. I  thought he was on the China Station. But I find he's got a nice soft billet on a ship in harbour here."

"Tell us—" Rakes began, but the Scot cut him short.

"Tell us nothing; we don't want to hear. You've got your own little differences to settle with the gentleman, and you want us to hear a hand. Well, we're standing; by ready; that's all. Now let's step out lively for the pub where they sell that cider, and if the best cider that's brewed can equal the worst whisky that ever leaked out of Scotland I'll eat my sweat rag without pickles. Now, what do you say to that?"

And thereupon they beguiled the rest of the way with a very animated discussion on vintages.

THERE WAS a thin scum of fog on the Hamoaze that night, though overhead the full moon shone brightly enough. H.M.S. Abominable (which is naturally not her real name) swung at moorings there, over on the Mount Edgecumbe side, and, being a somewhat obsolete craft, took pride not in her batteries or her armour belt, but in the fact that her stern walk was the broadest and biggest in the British Navy. (This rather gives her away, but never mind, the man I am calling here "Crawford-Carr" does not require much consideration, be all the navy knows.) And on a Madeira chair at the port end of the stern walk sat the post captain in command, wrapped in a heavy greatcoat. He had that evening received a telegram signed "Lucy," that had disquieted him much, and in consequence of that telegram he sat in the stern walk, instead of going ashore to the club, as he intended. He had the reputation of being the best-looking man in the navy, and one of the most unscrupulous blackguards, both of which are high qualifications.

A sentry stumped backwards and forwards on the dew-wetted deck overhead, and beneath the stern walk the little waves spank-spanked against the Abominable's counter. The fog as it drifted down to him brought with it the mingled odours of seaweed and friend onions. Capt. Crawford-Carr cursed it— and incidentally and while he was at it cursed a number of other things— and lit a fresh cigar from the stump of the last. He had been smoking a "chain" of cigars since that telegram had arrived above the signature of Lucy.

"I am to be murdered to-night," the message had told him, "as a payment for what you have done to me. He is going to kill me, so he says, in sight of your ship. Look out from your stern walk, and you will see it done.—Lucy."

If he had been an American, Capt. Crawford-Carr would have taken a revolver with him as a companion on his watch, but in the British Navy they do not carry arms except on service. He ought to have had all of a naval officer's self-reliance that he would be able to muddle through somehow, but the strangeness and the unexpectedness of the telegram upset him mightily. Lucy — poor Lucy— he knew all about. But who was the mysterious "he" who was going to kill her?  And why should "he" set his murderous designs on Lucy instead of Crawford-Carr?

Capt. Crawford-Carr's conscience did not trouble him much at first. That, through hard usage, had grown to such a comfortable leathery texture, that it took a very great explosion even to scratch it. But he was very much concerned over his bad luck in being mixed up in what he very rightly understood could prove an extremely ugly scandal. He had got out of several unpleasant fixes before, as all the navy knew, and no proceedings had been taken against him officially, because officially he had not been found out. But he was quite aware that several of his superiors would take a delight in making an example of him if they could catch him. It would not be a case of being dismissed from his ship— or retired. For a big scandal (he shivered under his great coat as he thought of it, and bit harder on to his cigar) he would be broke— "dismissed the service."

A boat drifted past towards the Sound, with two men in it resting on their oars and smoking. They looked like ordinary merchant steamers' firemen. They were talking, and in spite of his preoccupation, the words came to Capt. Crawford-Carr's ears through the mist. They we're talking of him.

"A blighted brass-edged scoundrel," said one of them.

"Luck on the girl," said the other. "Daren't tackle him. I would, if I were in his place."

"He'll kill the girl, sure."

"No, dead sober. Makes him all the wickeder."

"Swore he'd cut her throat on the deck of the beggar's ship." And then the boat drifted on the fast-flowing tide till she was out of earshot.

"My God!" said Capt. Crawford-Carr. "This is the deuce of a hole."

Overhead the boots of the marine sentry clumped hard on the deck planks, and below the stern walk the little wavelets seemed to chuckle with tinkling laughter as they slapped against the counter. If the rules of the service had permitted it, Capt. Crawford-Carr would have liked to send away the sentry who stumped backwards and forwards across the quarter deck, as he felt sure by now that the man would see something that he would he able to bear dangerous witness to later on.

And then came another boat. A man was sculling it with a single oar from the stern, and somehow, though the man's face was muffled by a broad-leaved hat pulled down over it, his figure was vaguely familiar. On the boat's floorboards sat a woman, with her back against the thwart. There was a shawl over her head, and this shadowed her face, but Capt. Crawford-Carr was as sure it was Lucy as if he held her in his arms. He jumped from his chair, gripped the smoothly painted railings of the stern walk. The man in the boat saw his movement, turned for a moment, and shook a venomous fist. Then quick as light he picked up an axe, and rained down murderous blows on the woman who lay before him in the boat.

She made no sound, offered no resistance.

Capt. Crawford-Carr stripped off his great coat and vaulted over the rail into the water. As he swam, the warship behind him broke into sudden life. The sentry had bawled out a prompt "Man overboard," and the naval resource and "discipline supplied the rest.

But the man in the boat had time in hand. He dropped his axe, and picked up a sack into which with vigorous heaves he thrust his victim. He added a dozen stones as sinkers, and just as Crawford Carr swam alongside, he pitched the sack and its contents over into the Hamoaze.

Crawford-Carr dived, and the boats racing up from the Abominable emitted a dozen men eager to bear a hand where the skipper had given a lead. Together in deep water they groped for the sack, and found it, and grappled with it, and dragged it to the surface. Under the moonlight they saw a ghastly face daubed with red, and Crawford-Carr, post captain in the British Navy, for the first time in his life, fainted. The murderer's boat drifted away empty through the fog, but the murderer himself had slipped overboard, and dived, far under water, and swam away unnoticed into the night.

AN HOUR later Fairfield was drinking hot rum and water in the firemen's forecastle of an outgoing tramp steamer, and receiving the congratulations of his two friends.

"We were standing by," said little Rakes, "and saw the whole thing. They never tumbled to it that the poor lady was anything but real for long enough. Commend me to the British Navy for a fine place to find fools in. But where did you get her?"

Fairfield laughed. "That 'Grand Gramophone hall' place used to be a waxwork show in my day, and I went in on the off chance of their having some of the old stock still on hand. They had. I bought Mary Queen of Scots for 10/. I thought she'd just fill the bill, but I never dared to hope that brute Carr would give himself away as completely as he did. With any decent luck he'll have to resign his commission over this— as better men than he have had to do before him."

"But where do you come in?" Rakes persisted. "You'd better tell us the rest of the tale."

"You've heard all there is for publication," said the Englishman shortly. "Here, rouse out. It's our watch."

______________________

14: The Stuffed Sunfish at Genoa.

Observer (Adelaide) 11 June 1910,

"WHAT'S saccharin?" asked Clydebank.

"Stuff that lemonade makers use in England when they get it instead of  sugar. It's about 250 times as sweet as sugar, and if they can smuggle it into the country and not pay the tariff— which is a heavy one— they can save a pot of money by using it."

Thus Fairfield. He was a man of much general information, and he never stuck at accuracy when lie thought glibness would be appreciated. Probably that was one of the points which made him such a favourite with women.

"Ah!" said the Scot. "I thought the game was smuggling."

"The Dago who tackled me said it wasn't. He said it was merely a commercial proposition he was offering."

"And you saw there was 'siller' in it?" said Rakes, "and snapped him up? Well, you know your own business best, perhaps, but I'd like to point out that right here in Genoa there are some of the biggest sharks in the Mediterranean, and you'll get your fingers bitten if you don't take care. What's the offer? Are they wanting you to run a cargo of contraband saccharin into England?

"They are not; England wasn't mentioned, New York's the port, and. the mail said he could find us good pay on a boat that's pulling out for there on Saturday next. I said we'd all three sign on, or none, and he said three would suit him finely."

'Who's your friend? Boarding house runner?"

"Ercole Dandolo," read Clydebank, producing a piece of paper. "He says lie's the lineal descendant of a former Doge of Genoa, but I had to take his word for that. I shouldn't have guessed it. In the meanwhile he keeps a little public house on the road that leads to the Campo Santo, and he sells the worst whisky in Italy at 25 cents a glass."

"I think we'll go and sample it," said Fairfield. "I shouldn't like any one so young and innocent as you to fall among evil companions for the sake of a little good advice. That statue you're staring at is Christopher Columbus. They call him Colon here because they don't know any better. The reason he looks so sick is because he discovered America,"

"That's not correct," said little Rakes. "He's feeling mean because he knows now what the ice-cream and-piano-organ business has grown to since be quitted. Don't you run away with the idea that Dagos nave a thin time in the States because you see white men treating them as they wouldn't treat a yellow dog. The Dago doesn't mind; he lives small, and stores up five-dollar bills inside his boots; and presently he's able to come back to Italy, home, and garlic, and do nothing to a cigarette accompaniment for all the rest of his days. When a free and enlightened―"

"Oh, dry up," the Englishman put in. "I want to hear more about Clydebank's descendant of the Doges. Let's have this saccharin scheme.""

Clydebank rubbed an inflamed nose with his forefinger.

"Well, you see, as I've hinted, the whisky at Mr. Dandolo's pub was bad; you might call it the spirits of unjust men without being libellous, and the details just escaped me. Good whisky I can carry to the extent of a bottle and a half, or even at a pinch two bottles, and walk home as steady as the Bishop of Sodor and Man. But bad whisky confuses the legs, and is fatal to the carrying away of statistics. I left Mr. Dandolo's after my bottle and a half, and, feeling sentimental, I just walked out to the Campo Santo. Nothing like a cemetery for curing you when you're sentimental. There's a family group there, with marble men in marble frock coats, and the women in marble crinolines, that always bring me back to the commonplace when I look on them."

"I wish you'd quit maundering and get back to this smuggling scheme."

"Man, that's just what I'm trying to do, but the whole yarn's escaped me. I've been talking this last ten minutes trying to 'bring it back, but it won't come.  I fear there's nothing for it but to return to the pub and get the tale over again."

This, then, is what they did, walking up through the narrow streets of old Genoa, and through the modern suburb, and past a douane where uniformed officials examined incomers with unpleasant thoroughness, and into the country beyond, where the little inn stood among the market gardens. Signor Ercole Dandolo they found to be an affable Piedmontese, four days behind with his shaving, and speaking broken United States with a glib Bowery accent. He exhibited a stuffed fish, a globular monstrosity with cowries for eyes, which dangled from a roof beam at the end of a string.

"I can guess that in once," said Fairfield. "That's a sunfish that the marinero takes home to his girl, and the girl sells for eighteen pence to a curiosity dealer."

"My girl in N'York," said the Italian, "will give-a you ten dollars United States currency for every one of those fish that you take from me to her."

"You stuff them, of course?"

The innkeeper winked a black and shiny eye. "Si, Signor, I stuff-a them. My girl in N'York has a sweet tooth. I can get you stokehold berths in a steamboat that sails for there in two days' time."

Little Rakes, the Yankee, licked his lips. "Boys, we'll go, eh? My! but it'll be  good to get back to God's country again."

"Oh, it you like," said Fairfield carelessly. One port was as good as another to him as long as there were women there for him to flirt with, and with money in his pocket he knew he could find smiles to his taste in New York. So without further argument the adventure was accepted.

"We'll take the goods with us now," said Fairfield.

But it appeared the sunfish were not loaded with their cargoes of saccharin; it was a nice operation, the stuffing and the stitching up, and they would not be ready until the day after to-morrow.

"All right; send them, down to the boat," said Fairfield.

But again there was a hitch. Signor Ercole could not leave his inn, and it desolated him to say that he had not a trustworthy messenger. They argued, but he would not give way, and at last a compromise was made; in consideration of the extra exertion that the three firemen would have to make in once more walking out front Genoa, the innkeeper was to stand them a sumptuous dinner.

It was Clydebank who stuck out for the dinner, and by special clause insisted that it was to include Chianti and cognac, and when the hour came the Signora Dandolo outdid herself in honour of the occasion. The garlic of her cooking ascended to the skies, and three times the bulbous flask of raw strong Chianti was, renewed in the swing cradle in the middle of the table before the courses of the dinner drew to an end. And then came the coffee, with little saucers of beet sugar, and bottle of cognac; together with cigars of a potency that tried even a fireman's boiler-plated inside. Purple night lay above them, hung with generous stars, and in the distance some unseen singer thrummed n guitar and sang Funiculi Funicula to it in a full melodious tenor.

Clydebank stuck steadily to the brandy, little Rakes compared the scene with others of superior quality that he had known during his shady past in the new world, and Fairfield very contentedly made love to the comfortable landlady who had done the cooking.

It was late when at last they took to the road. The three bore a sun fish apiece, bloated things of rough skin, with supercilious parrots beaks and staring eyes made of cowrie shells. They were by no means objects of beauty, but in maritime circles they pass current for curiosities, and have a value accordingly, and at home they generally dangle in public house parlours and form a convenient perching place for flies. Rakes carried his by the end of its string; Fairfields' was tucked under his arm: the Scot, who felt he might want hands as well as feet to carry him home had stuffed his monstrosity inside his dungaree coat; and on him when they came to the douane the eagle eye of the custom house descended with suddenness.

The officers were not content with finding the obvious sunfish; they searched Clydebank through from cellar to garret, and he (for a wonder, in view of the Chianti and the cognac) did not resent the examination. But Rakes and the Englishman, when they in turn were searched with similar thoroughness, made remarks that were pointed and profane.

"Now, why," said Fairfield, when at last they were allowed to enter Genoa, "why did they go through us like that ? That douane is there merely to levy a tax on people bringing in meat and agricultural produce. I guess they didn't take us for farmers."

"Give it up," said Hakes.

"I'll go back and argue it with them," said Clydebank, and thereafter gave his two friends considerable trouble in heading hint off from his design, and navigating him down towards the harbour, where the steamer lay on which they were due to embark.

The Chianti and the cognac which were within Clydebank ripened, as it were, as the warm evening drew on, and the Scot grew distinctly argumentative. He was not in the least quarrelsome, as he was at pains to point out, but he was in a mood when the idea of being imposed upon by any qualified Dago on the Continent of Europe was intensely abhorrent to him.

He was in this mind then when Signor Ercole Dandolo put in another appearance.

Signor Dandolo gesticulated and began to speak.

"Before ye go any further," said the Scot, "I wish to inform ye I'm a serious pairson, and I'll thank you to stop those grimaces, you black-haired baboon. You may think that I'm the party that takes you round on an organ―"

"Dry up, Clydebank," said little Rakes. "Now, Mr. Dandolo, say right out what's broke, and leave us to our evening stroll, or you'll find yourself dropping over the end of the wharf."

"I have come to say you must give me back sunfish. My friend-a in N'York does not wanta them just now."

"How did you find that out so suddenly?"

"Telegramm-a. he arrive a minute after you left."

"At which hour, of course, all the telegraph offices would be closed. It's a poor lie, that. Try another."

"I am afraid of the risk I ask-a you to run."

"Far too thin. The risk's no bigger or less than it has been all day. You mean you want these sunfish back."

"Si, Signor."

"Now you're talking. And we're to have all our trouble and anxiety for nothing? I don't think. My good Ercole, if your young woman in New York don't take saccharin in hers this week, I guess we'll just have to use it up to sweeten our steamer tea with instead of the usual molasses and sand. I say, Ercole, don't dance. You'll only irritate Clydebank if you set him thinking of that organ again."

"But you must-a not take them. I buy those sunfish back. I give-a you now what my friend would give you in N'York."

"Not good enough."

"I'll give-a you double."

Here Clydebank cut in. "For the love of decency, Fairfield, keep that gesticulatin' ape quiet. Put your thumb on his wind pipe. That's it. It made me dizzy to look at him before. That's fine and soothing now. Now, money I like, no man bettor. But I'm going to look at the saccharin inside this fish's belly before I give it up, and if I think it looks appetising, well, I'll eat it. I don't know that ever I tried saccharin— consciously, that is."

The Scot's two hard thumbs met in that dried sunfish's middle, and drew apart. The stitches came undone. But instead of bottle, or tube, or packet of the sweet powder, there were little parcels which held diamonds— and diamonds— and more diamonds.

They opened the other two fish— and suppressed Signor Ercole's frenzied struggles. More diamonds: set as stars, brooches, pendants.

"The thing is clear,"  said Clydebank. "These are stolen goods, and the ape has employed us to smuggle them in through the walls for him. Ye'll mind the searching those customs house sharks gave us?"

"Gee! They're worth a fortune. We can quit the stokehold and live decent again on those. We can realize in N'York―" Little Rakes began with a brilliant scheme, but the Scot cut him short.

"Oh, Lord, lead us not in temptation," he said, "but deliver us from Dagos," and flung his handful of gems far over the slimy waters of the harbour.

Fairfield did the same.

Little Rakes without hesitation followed their example. But he kicked Ercole Dandolo till his toes ached before he ran after the other two, who were making for the steamer.

____________________

And Other Stories

15: The Gray Hair

Healesville and Yarra Glen Guardian 30 Dec 1910

"HE'S A common liar," said York.

"I don't think it," said the Club secretary, judicially. "He may have exaggerated in the details; he probably has done; any man with a tongue in his head would do with such an opportunity; but I'm inclined to believe he'd got ordinary truth for a foundation. And mark you, I've known Felton off and on for a long time. I was only a year senior to him at Cambridge."

"My dear boy," said York, "I've known him intimately ever since he was Johnny Felton in knickerbockers and tears at a dame school. There was nothing heroic about him then, and I've never noticed a change grow in that respect during all the years that have edged in since. He was no good at games or anything when he was a kid; he's been nothing but a petticoat pendant ever since he came down from the 'varsity. No, Johnny's always been the most nervous, effeminate little creature imaginable. But," York added, thoughtfully, "I must confess that I have never found him to be much of a liar either. He hadn't the necessary inventiveness. Whenever he told a tale that was anything beyond the most ordinary gossip, it was the dreariest thing imaginable― up to the present outbreak, that is."

"And now, because he comes out with a startler, you don't believe him."

"There's something wrong about this tale," said York, obstinately. "It doesn't hang together right."

"Well," said the club secretary, "I've had some experience of liars at this shop, and I always notice that the one prominent feature in all their yarns is the beautiful way in which all the pieces dovetail in with one another. But letting that alone, there's another thing to remember. When Felton left London two months ago for the States his hair was dark brown; he comes back with it gray as a badger's; there's no getting over that."

"And that's the only thing which stumps me," said York, thoughtfully. "Men do not get completely gray in eight short weeks without a good solid reason. Hullo, though, look. There he is, off button-holing Methuen. He's telling his yarn over again; and that must be the fourteenth time this blessed day. Now look here. I'll bet you Methuen stumps him. Methuen's been all over the world, and he'll pick out the weak points which we don't see. Come on and listen."

"Can't," said the club secretary. "I've got work to do."

"Oh, come along."

"Work!" said the club secretary solemnly, and helped himself to matches and went off to his own den.

York got up and stretched his arms. He smiled like a man who is going to be entertained, and then he crossed the room and took the deep chair close to Methuen's. He ordered a large whisky and soda from the waiter who had just come in, and settled himself down to listen. Felton was fairly into the swing of his tale.

"Oh, we wandered all about North Carolina and Tennessee," he was saying. "In the Allegheny country for the most part. Know it?"

"Not a bit," said Methuen, "except s vaguely, by reputation. I've merely passed through there from Richmond, Virginia, down to New Orleans, on the cars."

"Remember Ashville in North Carolina ?"

"Can't say I do."

"Well, you must have passed through it, but perhaps were there at night. The Ashville.  Poor old chap! Poor old Sugden!"

"What's the matter with Sugden, Johnny?"

"Handed in his checks," said Felton, darkly. "Thought they only did that out west. But it's a good phrase anyway. What did Sugden meddle with checks for?"

"It was moonlighting," said Felton.

"I thought it was America you were talking about," York cut in. "'Moonlighting' sounds as if you'd got to Ireland."

Felton ignored the suggestion.

"You know what moonlight whisky is, Methuen, don't you?"

"Real mean corn?"

"Illicit whisky made by the tarheelers up in the mountains. It's awful stuff to drink, and nobody but a mountaineer could swallow it, or make it." "Hard stuff to brew?"

"No, dangerous. It's against the law, you know. And when the sheriff and his gang raid a still, they shoot first and ask questions afterwards."

"Ah!" said Methuen, "I've heard they were a pretty tough crowd up in the mountains there, and especially on the Tennessee side, in the Great Smokies."

"Do you know the ground then?" Felton asked quickly.

"I've told you no. Trot out your yarn, Johnny. I can't contradict."

"Oh, you think I came back here to tell lies," said Felton, and York from the depths of the big chair laughed. "But you needn't suppose that I went in and out of a business that turned my hair this colour merely because I liked it."

He passed a hand over his gray head with a gesture that was entirely pathetic.

"Before I left England on that horrible trip to the Alleghenies, you know I got on with the women as well as any fellow in London. You are neither of you ladies' men, and I know you despise me for it; but that was my hobby, and no one can deny that I was well up in the front rank. Well, I came back a cauliflower-headed fogey. Do you suppose any of this year's debutantes will care to do a flirtation with me like half the last batch did?"

"Of course they'll all jump at the chance," said York. "Veal always adores the hero of wild romantic adventure."

Felton gave a slow and mournful shake of the head, but his eyes distinctly brightened.

"Do you really think so?" he said.

"Sure of  it," said York, briskly. "Look how the little dears all trot after Methuen there."

"Skittles!" said Methuen. "I don't know ten women in London, and don't want to. 'My love is on a distant shore,' or, to be more accurate, on several distant shores. So you see they don't clash. I once tried spooning with two women at once in this village, and they met and compared notes and both came and clawed me. I had to clear in a hurry, and I haven't dared to tackle the London female since. But York's right, Johnny. Spin your yarn and show your scars; curdle 'em, and they'll adore you. It's funny why they should, but that's the way they're built."

Felton shook his head and tried not to look pleased.

"But what induced you of all people to brew moonlight whisky?" Methuen asked. "Some women been scratching you here, and you ran away and got desperate?"

"I went out to the States merely to see an old friend," said Felton. "You won't know him, either of you. His name was Sugden, and he lived in the north before he left England. We had always kept up a good correspondence ever since he was abroad, and he was always wanting me to go over and look him up.

"So a couple of months ago when the season here came to an end, I sent him a cable and followed it myself in the next steamer. He was living in Ashville, North Carolina; and he'd been most things, from clerk in a store― counter-jumper that is, y'know― to conductor of a trolley car. But just before I got there he'd been bringing off one or two operations in real estate which had left him in funds, and he said he wanted a holiday. We agreed to go off together. It was a tossup between one of the sea-bathing places up north and a trip to the mountains, and I gave my bean for the dose of savagery."

"Oh, come now, Johnny!" said York.

"It's a fact," said Felton, "and if you want to know the reason I must own to being a horrible snob. You see, poor old Sugden's clothes were so awfully behind date that I should have been ashamed to go with him to any place where we might meet smart people. So now you see."

"Beg pardon," said York, "that sounds more likely."

"I don't know why you fellows should be so sceptical," said Felton. "You don't suppose I went off, and got into a mess, and earned this infernal gray hair, for the sheer fun of the thing, do you?"

"Go on with the yarn," said Methuen. "Never mind York. He's jealous."

"Well, at first we were going to take a jersey, or a buckboard, or some sort of vehicle, and drive along in that, and have a tent and be fairly comfortable. But Sugden said we should have much better fun if we rode, and be able to see far more of the country.

"The nights are very hot at that time of the year, and it didn't a bit matter about sleeping in the open. And as for grub, we must buy what we could as we went along. He was to take a kettle, a frying pan, and each of us had a blanket on the front of his saddle, and a bag slung behind to carry anything we were forced to take. You should have seen poor old Sugden on that Kentucky horse of his, with flap stirrups, and a big felt hat! Buffalo Bill was a fool to him.

"We struck straight out for the mountains. We were going past Bill Nye's place at Buck Shoals on the French Broad River, then to Bowman's Bluff, where there is the English colony, and then way up to Caesar's Head, and on down the other side into Tennessee. We weren't going to have any settled plans past that; we were going just where the spirit and the trails took us; and we were going to forget that such things as real estate or stiff collars had ever been invented. It was all Sugden's scheme, he just bristled with it; he said it would be a regular trip in Arcadia. Poor old Alfred!

"Well, you know, you chaps, I'm no hand at describing scenery. You've got to read that in books if you want to find out about it, or else go out there and stare for yourselves. But I will say it was all fine; great forests, y'know, with big red cliffs sticking out of them, and red soil on the roads, and red water in the rivers. Occasionally we came across a village, and got apples and peaches and chickens, and filled up the corn bag, and bought a fresh tin of baking powder, and at night we made fast the horses to tree boughs, and built a fire to cook at, and camped out under the stars. Am I boring you?"

Methuen yawned.

"Er― no," he said. "But never mind the landscape and the commissariat, Johnny. I'm a hit pushed for time now, and you can tell that some other day. Get on to the shooting. I want to hoar how you earned those venerable looks."

Felton sighed.

"It's a hard thing to have to talk about," he said, "especially as nothing but my curiosity took us up there at all. You see moonlight whisky was not new to Sugden. It was merely bad liquor and nothing more. But it was just like a now story book to me then. It was filthy staff to drink; sort of mixture between paraffin and methylated spirit; but it gave you a delicious kind of creeps when you remembered the murderous outlaws who had brewed it. At least that was the way it struck me, when I didn't know anything about them."

"Fancy Johnny getting enthusiastic about anything so badly dressed as outlaws," York murmured.

"Give the man a chance," said Methuen. "Go on, Johnny."

"And after a good deal of fishing for it, we were given the tip as to where one of the finest stills in all the mountains was hidden; and we got set on to the end of the horse trail, and rode away for it through the trees.

"Now it turned out that the revenue had been trying hard to discover this still for many a year; but that we didn't know, and the tarheelers we'd asked questions from got it into their frowsy heads that we were revenue spies, and had sent word; which also of course we didn't guess. But we got the news given to us mighty suddenly. We had gone a matter of a dozen miles, maybe, when we came upon a big black pine felled across the horse trail. We pulled up, and someone told us to hold our hands above our heads. There was no help for it. There were a dozen gun barrels pointing  at us from cover; and some fellows came with ropes, and in another minute they had us trussed up like a couple of fowls on a game dealer's slab.

"We told them we were nothing but harmless tourists, but they only jeered and banged us about with their feet. They'd quite persuaded themselves that we were revenue spies, and not all the talking in the world would have made them change their minds. But they didn't even give us a chance to talk. They tied up the mouths of each of us with his own handkerchief, and then held a trial over us. Fancy that! And then there was no foolery about it either. In ten minutes they had condemned the pair of us to death, and I felt a sort of empty feeling grow where my stomach ought to have been that was quite new to me. I don't mind telling you I was in the deuce of a funk. You fellows may think me a coward if you like, but I don't mind telling you I was horribly frightened."

"Don't apologise," said Methuen. "Any man would have been. But I suppose when you were both thoroughly sorry for yourselves, they gave you a kick and sent you on your way, or else you would not be here now!"

"Oh, did they?" said Felton. "You don't understand these brutes. A few of them were for stringing us up there and then, but a someone suggested that they would make a better example of us if they hanged us by the side of the high road; and the rest picked up the idea at once. They took us back down the trail on led horses, and halted when we got to the road, under a big white oak.

" 'It will carry the pair of them,' said somebody.

" 'No, one at a time,' said somebody else. "We will string up the tall fellow here, and tote the other one down the grade and hang him on that big magnolia tree below the bend.'

"Up till then I'd a wild hope that we were only going to be scared; but when I saw they intended to murder the pair of us I very near fainted. I saw them put a rope round Sugden's neck and pull him up to a branch of the white oak, and the brutes made me look on till he was stone dead. Poor old Alfred! And I was as powerless as a fly to help him! And then we moved off down the road, and left him dangling behind us, and I expected to be dead, too, within another hour!"

"Phew!" said Methuen. "That was a tight corner. And so I suppose you got desperate, and made a break for it, and got clear?"

"I'd all the will to do that," said Pelton, "but not the chance. I'd my wrists tied behind me, and my feet coupled together beneath the horse's belly. Otherwise I should have made a dash for it, even with the certainty of being shot down before I got a dozen yards away. Anything is better than being strung up like a dog. But, as I say, they took care that escape of that kind was impossible.

"And the way I did get free was unexpected. We met a fellow on the road to the bend by the magnolia who had travelled down with me in the cars (so it seems) from New York; and he vouched that I was a Britisher newly landed, and could not be a revenue spy. They were half in mind to hang me still, so that I should not bother them further, but at I last they said if I'd give my word of honour I to clear from the country and not try to take any vengeance, they'd let me go. And I did that. Poor old Alfred was dead and couldn't be helped. And so I didn't think shame in looking after the saving of my own life.

"I suppose," he added, with a shrug of the shoulders, "a man in a book would have saved Sugden and exterminated the moonlighters; but then I'm only an ordinary individual, and merely human. I hadn't a chance given me to do anything. And I rode back to Ashville and looked in the glass. My hair had been brown when I started out ten days before, it was the colour you see it now then, and I wasn't surprised. I felt as if I'd lived five and forty years between the two dates. Well, it's seven o'clock, and I must be going. Goodbye, you fellows. Don't tell everybody what a mess I've been in."

"Which being interpreted," said York, as the little gray-haired man went wearily out of the room, "is a request to advertise the matter most thoroughly far and wide. What do you think of the yarn?"

"Don't quite know," said Methuen. "It seems a bit improbable somehow, but there's no getting over that grey hair. He couldn't have invented that― Hullo, look here there, it can't be. Yes, it is. I say, Cospatric"― a man who had just come into the room walked across laughing― "what on earth are you doing here."

"I landed in England yesterday from the States, and came to this club to dine with a steamer acquaintance."

"Sit down and talk," said Methuen. "This is Mr. York― Mr. Cospatric. Fancy stumbling across you, here of all places."

"It is a horrible small world," said Cospatric. "On the stairs coming up to this room I met a little fellow I saw only the other day in Ashville, North Carolina. He was staying in one of the big summer hotels there, to pick up local colour, and also for another purpose which made onlookers laugh. He'd evidently been in the habit of dying his hair, and had got sick of it. Consequently as the daily dose was discontinued, his locks were gray close to the head, and brown at the ends. It made him a most comic sight, and watching the gray sub-stratum get deeper day by day provided cheap amusement for the whole hotel. We concluded he was some sort of a novelist, because he was very eager about the blood and thunder tales in the local papers, and keen to be told all the details.

"There was one affair which especially fascinated him. A truculent deputy sheriff called Sugden went up to raid some moonlight whisky mills, and made himself disliked by the local tarheelers, and was hanged by them out of revenge on a tree by the roadside. It was quite a three days' sensation in the local rags, with scare-headings and woodcuts all complete. Felton just revelled in it. I shouldn't mind betting he dishes up that Sugden episode for English fiction before many months are over."

York was gasping with laughter in the depth of the big armchair. "He's done it already," he said.

"Oh, you know the man, do you?" said Cospatric.

"We know him, all right, and he isn't a good storyteller. He gave us the yarn with tons of detail, only he got mixed up about the names. Oh, Johnny, Johnny, I didn't think you could rise to heights like this!"

Methuen lifted his tumbler.

"Here's to him," he said. "And we won't give him away. It would be sheer cruelty to cut the ground from under him now that he has gone to all this trouble and expense to build up his yarn. And besides, female London is in my debt. I owe them a score."

____________________

16: Guaranteed Countess

Sydney Mail (NSW), 2 June 1937

THE papers, when they mentioned her. which I regret to say was often, always put her name in inverted commas. " 'The Countess of Brittondale' in trouble again," the headings would read, and with rather a chuckle the reporter would add that she had gone to gaol for three days, three weeks, three months, or whatever it was, sooner than pay a fine. Some brand of contempt of Court was her usual trouble.

"The accused, who was not represented by counsel, defended herself very ably, and the magistrate gave her every latitude, but―"

Generally, it was the custody of her stepson. Peter George, that was the trouble. Lord Brittondale, in his occasional sober intervals, had a habit of applying to the Courts for possession of Peter George, not because he wanted him, but merely to annoy Frances, who did. Nine months of the year she was a hard person to serve a writ on, for the simple reason that during that interval she vanished. But she was a great sports woman, and three months per annum she always set apart for having it out with the Earl of Brittondale and annoying him to the best of her ability.

As men who were at Rugby and Corpus with him could guarantee, Peter Henry, the then peer, was always a dirty dog, though somehow attractive to women. He was tall, burly, a great traveller, and a fine big-game shot; he was wealthy, thrifty, and drank like a fish; and he had represented England at poker with complete success in Monte Carlo, Chicago, and Arizona. In Chihuahua, over some slight trouble about an extra joker, he acquired a shot in the hip which caused him to limp for the rest of his life, but it is on record that the other three gentlemen concerned retired to their coffins. People who knew said Brittondale was a wrong 'un, but a warrior all the same.

FRANCES was the daughter of a parson, an extremely able Oxford graduate, whose main handicap in life was an inability to suffer fools gladly. He was never presented to a living. He chivvied about from curacy to curacy, seldom staying in any one billet more than six months. On arrival he would win golden opinions from vicar and parishioners from the very first week. He was a good organiser, a hard worker, a fine preacher. But sooner or later he would come out unfailingly with a fatal sermon. "We parsons have our penances"— the words would come down from the pulpit. "Being forced to look down Sunday after Sunday on the same bald heads and the same inane bonnets is one of the smallest of mine. It is your smugness and your dullness that rile me most." And so on.

Kind vicars said it was want of tact; brusque ones handed him Bradshaw; and Frances was brought up in an atmosphere of brisk change of scene. Her mother had died when the daughter was a babe of twelve, and she had assumed command of the family finances from that date. Papa had read classics at Oxford and stated quite frankly that he had no head for darned domestic figures. As Frances, on possibly inadequate means, always provided meals and shelter for the pair of them, he was not rude enough to pry into details.

The Right Honourable Peter Henry, Earl of Brittondale, blew in on them whilst they were holding down a locum tenancy in the Vale of York, viewed, courted, conquered, and married Frances by special licence inside a fortnight. He was a widower with one boy, Peter George. In a month he had tired of her, and she of him. He pushed off to the Western Atlas to shoot avis aoudad, and she (with £100 in her pocket) returned to trek from parish to parish with papa. She took with her Peter George, heir to the title, because nobody else appeared to want him. The young gentleman was then aged nine.

At the end of the year, a firm of solicitors, who stated that they were acting for his lordship, informed her that owing to an unpardonable oversight the Earl of Brittondale had neglected to mention his previous marriage to a Mexican lady in Chihuahua before going through the ceremony in the Vale of York. They must request her to discontinue styling herself Countess of Brittondale. Without prejudice they were instructed to offer her £1000 in lieu of damages. There was no mention whatever in the letter of Master Peter George.

Frances collected the £1000, and with it started a bank account; she had a card-plate engraved with the name of the Countess of Brittondale; and she proceeded to run up bills right and left, which she said the earl of that ilk would square up for her on his return from moufflon shooting in the mountains of Southern Morocco.

THE unedifying tales of the duels between Peter Henry, the peer, and Frances, whose right to a title seemed vague, will not be printed here. You can get them from the newspaper files if you are curious. If the Earl of Brittondale only had been concerned, the Press would have given him no space. He was not only a dirty dog, but he was a dull dog also. Frances, however, glittered; she always kept her temper, and had a tongue like a stiletto; she "drew" Judges, and beat them at repartee. Put in trade terms she was clinking good copy, and although the gentlemen of the Press were not always exactly fair to her— as witness those inverted commas round "Countess of Brittondale"—they always dished her up in sporting style. They weren't quite fair to Brittondale either for that matter, because they always made him out to be a dirtier dog than he really was. Frances certainly did give the poor devil a hectic time of it. Clever woman. Frances, and an astonishingly capable hater. I always took uncommonly good care never to give her any excuse for getting her knife into me.

She had infinite variety in her methods of attack. She took regal suites at the big London hotels, and supped the band and their lady friends lavishly after band hours; she bought furs, frocks, yachts, and collected Georgian silver cream-jugs; she subscribed to hospitals, dogs' homes, and lifeboats; she gave a splendid ball to the divorcees of London "and escorts"; she gave prizes for Shorthorn bulls, sewing competitions, and single-handed flights to Iceland and back; she ran a big hospital bazaar.

Brittondale was a rich man. He was also a miser. He would sooner have teeth drawn than pay. But his cheque-book suffered, and his dentist saw no reason to send in a bill. I do not especially admire the methods of the lady, but there is no doubting the efficiency and the extent of her torments.

LORD BRITTONDALE hit back, of course, via his solicitors.

"Show the woman up," were his orders. "Make life miserable for her."

The law did not care for the job, and was rather icy. It would prefer his lordship's definite itemised instructions in writing. It got them.

"Decline to pay any bills she runs up in my name." wrote that angry man from a camp in Nyasaland. "Subsidise any tradesman who can prosecute her. Get at her through the boy. She's crazy on keeping Peter George, the Lord knows why. But don't let her. Twist her tail any way you can think of. Use your brains."

"He's a nasty effort, our distinguished client," said one solicitor partner to the other. "But trade's trade and I suppose we must carry out his filthy instructions. Worst of it is her dear ladyship goes to gaol with such a halo of sympathy every time that we begin to share Peter Henry's stink. I wish to God the papers would drop publishing the names of the solicitors in the case."

LADY BRITTONDALE, between spasms of gaiety and periods of enforced seclusion, as I say, vanished from the eyes of her enemies and her smart acquaintances. Possibly they did not look for her very hard. Possibly the enemies at any rate were glad enough when she ceased from troubling and allowed legal machinery to be at rest. Anyway, whether they searched or not. they never discovered her whereabouts.

The hiding-place was a simple one. She kept a lodging-house in Leeford. It was a Victorian dwelling that had once known pomp, and hour-glass waists, and elaborate whiskers, and now had crept down to humbler circumstance. As Mrs. George she was the exact and careful landlady: 27 Bolsover Square was the address.

She had tried and discarded assorted lodgers (including one disastrous season of "theatricals"), and now specialised in bachelor masters from the Leeford Grammar School. These did not pay much, it is true; they were dull fellows; but they usually came home  sober, which is a great comfort to all except the exhibitor.

Mrs. George was the quietest woman imaginable, and in mortal dread of police interference or anything that would bring her into public notice. She had five of these poor schoolmaster lodgers, and the big Victorian chambers were so divided up that they had five small bedrooms and five small sitting rooms between them, and a joint dining-room where they had their meals. Mrs. George catered efficiently. She cooked herself, and Bishop, the manservant, did the rest.

BISHOP'S name was something else to start with, but the schoolmaster lodgers decided that he looked far more like a bishop than a butler, and dubbed him accordingly. Even Mrs. George, after six months of hearing the schoolmasters using the name, dropped into the habit herself. So did Peter George.

Mrs. George and Bishop did all the housework of 27 Bolsover Square between them, though Master Peter George ran errands and found odd jobs when he was not at his seat of learning. Leeford Grammar School (as one could deduce from the class of men employed as masters) was not one of those academies for the so-called upper classes whose time is wasted on more or less compulsory games. It was vaguely supposed there were grammar-school playing fields somewhere, but boys who used them were rather looked down upon. They were not of the scholarship brand, and winning scholarships was the one thing the school lived for. That vague thing, Tone, which the vaunted public schools make such a fetish of, was a paltry affair, which the headmaster of Leeford Grammar School publicly owned made him feel sick.

This last deficiency troubled Mrs. George much. Certainly his Lordship of Britton-dale had been a Rugby boy in his time, and was as bad an egg as ever got into circulation. But even she could not help admitting that he did his blackguardisms gracefully. She (and Bishop) could teach young Peter George to get up and open a door for his mother, to drive knife, fork, and spoon in their proper directions, and to say "Sir" when he spoke to his seniors. They could bring him to understand the occasional need for a pocket handkerchief, and the sinfulness of sporting a made-up tie. But— there were little touches which only fags learn when they are making toast for their betters, or cleaning sixth-form boots, or being caned by gentlemen six months their senior for the enormity of wearing their trousers turned up when they ought to be turned down. Bishop, who had lived in the best families, pointed out these deficiencies, and Mrs. George agreed with him.

"But how the devil am I going to do it, my good man?" she would say in exasperation. "If I sent the dear boy to Rugby, Peter Henry or his filthy solicitors would be on to him in two ticks. I've not been exactly on velvet since the row, but losing Peter George would tear things finally."

"Quite so," Bishop would agree. ''We must carry on with licking him into shape down here in the kitchen. Those schoolmasters upstairs are entirely the wrong sort. They're all shaggy about the heels, poor brutes. Peter George, don't bite your nails, ever. I much prefer to see them dirty."

"Right-o, sir," said Peter George.

THE solicitors for the prosecution, acting on angry instructions from various shooting camps in tropical East Africa, had made various valiant attempts to compel "the alleged Countess of Brittondale" to produce the body of Peter George. Sometimes they had got a ruling in their favour over this; sometimes Frances had blandly asked an easy-going Judge to request the other side to show proofs that (1) she at that moment had the child in her control, or (2) that Peter George really existed. She had brought down a right and left of verdicts in her favour on these lines, and then the nauseated solicitors, after time had elapsed for sending a report to the equator and getting an infuriated cable in reply, much against their will put on the detectives. These, in four days, discovered the lodging-house at 27 Bolsover Square, Leeford, and submitted a list of residents.

Then, of course, the fat was in the fire with a vengeance. The solicitors, stung by the cable, were taking no chances with such a slippery customer as Madame Frances. Police arrived at Number 27, warrant in hand. The bland Bishop answered their ring, heard their errand, and slammed the door on their noses. After locking it noisily, he put the chain on the back entrance and helped Frances to climb through a sky-light on to the roof. Thereafter he rang up one of the lodgers at the grammar school, broke the news that Mrs. George had smashed her ankle at the tramway terminus near Tilsden, and requested that Master Peter George should be sent off there by the next car to help her.

"Yes, sir, Tilsden, where the trams stop. Madame will be very grateful of your kindness, sir."

The get-away was so simple that the police (who were probably not very keen on their job) did not drop on the trail for a week, and by that time Frances had bought the business of Madame Osiris, the veiled palmist, at Morecambe, and was living out of the public eye, and making a handsome profit at it, and Peter George was continuing his studies at the higher-grade board school as a day boarder at Lancaster. Bishop, with the help of a hired cook, was carrying on the affairs at 27 Bolsover Square, and was making a hopeless hash of the weekly accounts. He always said he never had a head for figures. But he certainly had a knack of getting a post-graduate gloss on schoolmasters who had been taught by their official chief that Tone did not matter, and scholarships for the shop window were the only things that counted.

THEN came explosion. It was a slack season, and the papers were able to do full justice to:

Heroic Death of Sporting Peer.

Peter Henry had always been described by those who knew him as a dirty dog. But they would invariably tell you he was a plucky dog. There was that little affair at Chihuahua, for instance, when he dropped the three pistol experts whilst he was down on the floor himself with a bullet in the hip. There were also other desperate fights to his discredit, and during the Great War, of course, he was recommended for a V.C., but biffed his C.O. on the nose when he was tight and the thing was cancelled. But under the de mortuis rule these trifles were not mentioned in the obituaries. The tale was of a hunting day in Tanganyika. They were out after roan and a lion had bowled over Brittondale's Somali gun-bearer and was proceeding to eat him. The limping nobleman was unarmed except for a skinning knife, but he had charged home on the lion and stabbed it to death. The lion naturally objected to the dirking and clawed the Right Honourable the Earl of Britton dale savagely. His condition was said to be critical.... Stop Press news announced his death three days later from the inevitable blood poisoning.

Peter Henry's last kick was typical of the man. He had only time for one final smack at his Frances, but he knew the position of her tenderest spot. She loved Peter George beyond all other creatures in earth or heaven above. So, to hit at her through Peter George, he mentioned that though his marriage to the Mexican lady in Chihuahua was orthodox enough, he had not let loose the further fact, which came out after the wedding ceremony, that she had been another's before, and had not been efficiently divorced. So detestable Frances was the pukka Countess of Brittondale, but the title died with him, Peter Henry. That was the way to cut Frances.

SO Peter George went to Rugby as an ordinary commoner, and Frances, with three-quarters of a million sterling to play with, has settled down in a northern Tudor hall. The county people, having memory of a name which had been blazed so frequently in inverted commas, were at first inclined to be sniffy. They soon dropped that attitude. Her ladyship, on occasion, can be the urbanest creature that ever sipped China tea at a meeting for the propagation of mothers unions. Also, on the smallest provocation she can unsheathe a tongue that cuts like a whiplash. Several of His Majesty's Judges and magistrates can bear me out on this latter point.

As regards papa— that Oxford graduate whose handicap in the Church was an inability to suffer fools gladly— he, at his own personal request, remains at the head of 27 Bolsover Square, Leeford. He feels that he is doing good by driving decent manners into five uncouth grammar-school masters and trying to teach them the value of Tone. He has got hold of a cook who can keep accounts. Otherwise he does all the rest of the work of the house during term time. Everyone, so the Bishop says, has his own idea of amusement. Keeping a lodging-house for bachelor grammar-school masters tickles the father of the Countess of Brittondale.

_________________________

17: In Memoriam

Sydney Mail 28 July 1937

IT never seemed to most of us that L. H. Bell I ever had a fair chance. He was second son of course, and merely the Honourable, but £2000 a year, and paternal sneers at any kind of trade or profession one suggested taking up, are enough to put most men off edging themselves into a job. Then there was his reputation for terrific cleverness. At school he was in the sixth at thirteen, a record for age, and although he never got to the top of the Upper Bench, a lot of people said that was because of rank favouritism . We all said Bell would be a fool to chuck himself away on anything that didn't give him full scope.

WHEN the old lord married that type of English beauty whose legs we had all admired so much for so many years at the Palaceum, and Henry, the eldest son, following the paternal example, announced in the Press next day that he had done ditto an hour later with another celebrity who had hitherto earned an athletic living in the Gaiety chorus. The Press, with photographs, chortled over the right and left for a couple of days, and forgot it.

Nobody bothered much about the feelings of L. H. Bell on the subject. He was a man you liked, all right, didn't object to, I mean; but he was not a fellow anybody ever got matey -with. He was so infernally perfect in remembering things — dates, and tags of Horace, and the weights of the Cambridge crew in '01, and the number of shots fired at Jutland, and the angles of the passages in the Great Pyramid— those sorts of odds and ends that an ordinary man can get out of an encyclopaedia or a handbook if he is fool enough to want them.

AFTER about a year of help from his Palaceum m'lady, the old lord, as you will remember, went a most unholy mucker— over rubber, of all comic things. They went to live at Dinard on £280 a year supplied by sorrowing relatives. Henry, honest soul, and his high -kicker, who turned out to be a dear, just scraped enough together out of the general wreckage to buy a farm in Canada.

Henry and the kicker spat on their hands out there and did real work, and pulled down a comfortable livelihood.

L.H., without any £2000 a year, without any trade or job, was left high and dry on the beach, and he didn't shine there. He could tell you within five how many other pebbles there were alongside him out of jobs, what chances a beginner had of making £1000 a year within two years at the Foreign Office, the photographic retouching business, or the pawn broking trade, or he could give you accurate statistics on a thousand other matters you didn't care two straws about. But he didn't seem to have any ideas that were constructive.

I remember Bentham raging at him once with a 'Dash it all, L.H.. take your figures away to somewhere hot, and tell me something you can do. For instance, can you black boots?'

'I suppose so,' said L. H. Bell, 'though I never tried. But wouldn't it be rather a waste of steam to put me on to that? You remember the yarn of the elephant and the pins?'

'If you haven't learnt to black boots,' said Bentham, 'you can take it from me you can't do it. It's a job that has to be learned, like butchering, or accounting, or the law, or the three-card trick. No earthly demand for amateurs. Now think hard, my lad. Isn't there one dam' thing on earth that you really can do, and earn a commencing salary at?'

'If you put it that way — er— er?'

'I do put it that way. Get ahead.'

'I'm afraid I can think of nothing at the moment.'

'That's what I want to get down to. Now let's talk hard sense. You're broke. You've sponged on the rest of us till we're sick of it, and your tick's run out. You've no push, you've no brain, but you've a hell of a parrot's memory. There's a chap on the music halls who knows the whole of the Encyclopaedia Britannica— or is it Cruden's Concordance?— and answers offhand any question any ass in the audience chooses to put to him out of either of those two great works. You wear black tights and a red nose a foot long so as to remain inconspicuous, and the spotlights are turned on to hobnailed liver colour. I forget the band part, but that does its whack too, quietly of course, but penetratingly.'

L. H. BELL thumped a feeble fist on the table. 'And you think I'm going to make a tom fool of myself like that?'

'I don't for a minute,' said Bentham, 'because it sounds as though it might be a money-maker. It was only a light-hearted suggestion made with a view ol getting your own ideas on the subject, which you've kept hidden from us so far.'

'I haven't any,' said L. H. Bell.

'Never thought for a moment that you had. But I hope I've now driven into your empty, arrogant skull that— One, you're no good here; Two, we understand you don't propose to try and be any good; and that Three, we are sick of your sponging, and would be glad to hear what you propose to do next.'

L. H. BELL went out then, exceeding sorrowful, and one of the other men called Bentham a highly qualified brute.

'Spit your venom,' said Bentham. 'Don't mind me. But if you haven't gathered it for yourselves, I'll admit I'm sick of that bloke. He was always the model child with the schoolmaster; all memory; and the absence of brain didn't matter. You'll have noted that nobody from the Civil Service to the sewage works has offered him a job since he came down. Why? Because in hard workaday life an ounce of brain is of more use than a hundredweight of parrot memory that can tell you a thousand Glasgow telephone numbers and the names of all the junior queens of Timbuctoo. Now here's something practical. The fellow's an infernal nuisance to us here. He's always sponging. I'm for getting up a couple of hundred to start him off somewhere fresh in Africa, where he can either make good, without the memory handicap, or get eaten. Here are my four fivers.'

FOR the benefit of those who have mislaid their Bradshaw, and whose geography is also out of gear, I may point out that to reach the M'poso River you go up the Congo and take the first turning down the hill to the right. Mind the rapids.

That's quite clear then. L. H. Bell (if you still like to call him that) resides in a hut on the left-hand side of High-street in the town of N'dr'ly (if I've spelt it correctly), which is about 720 or 270 miles upstream. I am sorry for the spelling and the doubtful distances, but Bentham says malarial fever plays the deuce with one's figures and hand o' write. But those are the data as I got them from him.

BELL, after leaving (or being ejected from) England, made a good deal of variegated history before he fetched up in N'dr'ly, and indeed only worked up to his consulting practice in High-street after doing a good deal of spade-work of the panel variety in the suburbs. As he had been such a success at school himself his thoughts had naturally turned to the teaching profession, and as somebody told him there were plenty of openings for good men at the Cape, he went there and let it be understood he was open to offers.

The Cape Educationalists rather jumped at him to start with. He was given a billet at once, but even in a week's time the donors discovered it was too small for him, and Bell himself admitted he was wasted on such a trifling job. So he got another post, and another, and another, and in each the notices of dismissal became less and less polite. The poor chap had a memory like glue, and that was what had pleased the schoolmasters and examiners at home; but he had a vacuum instead of a constructive brain, and the Cape Educationalists seemed to find this out in about four and twenty hours.

How he got to the West Coast I never learned, but it was for something commercial and not educational. And, anyway, into the Congo Free State he vanished from eyes polite for four full years. A great many things go on in the Congo Free State that do not get into any reports that are published in Europe. And then, as I have said, he got into the country through which runs the M'poso River. His official position in those parts was something to do with rubber, but whether it was supposed to be tapping, or smoking what other people tapped, or shipping what somebody else had smoked, I never discovered. Anyway, it doesn't matter, because Bell always owned up himself that, whatever other faults he had, he had not 'got a commercial touch.'

I suppose that was true of all the family, except sound old Henry. And certainly neither the Congo Free State nor any private firm benefited by L. H. Bell's efforts on it's behalf on the M'poso.

One gathers, too, that he had been sent up there as an experiment, with a very short allowance of string, and when dividends did not materialise at once he was promptly cut adrift. Brutal, if you like, sir. But business people from the State downward have a short way with them in the Congo. Also, I suppose everybody within reach knew Bell.

The funny part of it is he never seems to have starved or even 'gone on the beach.' And soon he was moving out of the suburbs and setting up, as I say, on High street. He had found a market for his silly parrot memory at last.

The aristocracy along M'poso side— that is, the slave-owners as distinct from the slaves— were great gamblers, and N'dr'ly was their Monte Carlo. Their game was a simple one of odds and evens. A handful of beans was put' in a calabash, and you were allowed one glance and then guessed. A banker presided, and you bet against the bank. The bank was allowed to grab one bean or its worth out of every thirty to defray overhead charges.

For centuries I suppose prominent citizens had taken the bank in turn, but with the advent of Bell things changed. L. H. Bell made himself into a kind of Monsieur Blanc and collected all the gambling interests under his own fine roof. He provided a tomtom band and gave Hamburg trade gin free. And where, you may ask, did his talent come in? He learned to visualise the mass of spread-out beans and to tell, practically in an instant, whether the number before him was even or odd, and shade his bets accordingly. Once per séance— he never took the risk more than once— once during every evening's game he allowed himself to assist chance by adding a palmed bean as he emptied out the calabash on to the counting mat. Of course, if that bit of palming got spotted, Bell's guests would dine on him in the course of the evening. But that is a legitimate professional risk that one has to put up with when one's clients are all practising cannibals.

'There he is,' said Bentham, 'living in a fine house, with a couple of wives and a dozen slaves, and nobody like you or me to tell him he's an empty ass. He's money stuck in a bank here at home, big money, if he wanted to come back.'

PERSONALLY I hope he won't. Henry, that decent old hard-worker, as we all know, tumbled into the knives of a reaper and binder and was minced by his own Canadian horses, and the kicker married again. The old man died in Dinard. L.H. is 27th baron all right, but somehow I don't think he's likely to put in a claim. Her ladyship, who wears a bone stud the size of a half-crown in her lower lip, will probably shine her brightest in sunny Africa. I see the reference books say the title is extinct.

________________________

18: The Salvage Hunter

Gympie Times 23 September 1897

'AND SO you're going to give the information?' said his wife. 'They won't pay you for it. Not more than a pound or so. It isn't like towing her in. They're always mean.'

'If you'd tell me who "they" are?'

'Why, the owners.' 'Yes, but who are the owners? The Company did own her once, but they got paid out by the underwriters. The underwriters gambled amongst themselves, and then they gave her up; and who owns her now, the Lord may know but I don't. Now I'll tell you what, my dear: you've got to find out who the owners are, and you've got to buy up their interest in her.'

'Me!' screamed Mrs. Power.

'Yes, you, Woman, don't fling yourself about like that. Listen, and if you keep your head, we may cheat the workhouse yet. I've been to one of them money-lender fellows, and he says he'll take up my insurance, and give me £250 for it — and not a penny more.

'That'll never keep us our time, let us he as near as we may. And there'll be nothing left for the children.'

'You'll drive me mad,' said Power. 'Wait and hear my plan. Two hundred and fifty pounds by itself's no good for us. It would keep us three years, and we'd be thinking all the time of what was coming next, and be just miserable. But it's enough to gamble with. I'll leave you £150, and you must find out who are the owners of the Caspian, and get them to resign all their claims for that. They'll do it fast enough; they think she's totally lost. And if you can't work it yourself, get a lawyer. Only do it, my lass, and do it right, or I'll have all my trouble for nothing.'

'I don't understand you.'

'I don't suppose you do. But if you'll put on your cloak and come down street with me to that moneylender's to get the notes, I'll explain to you as we go.'

AS THE shore lamps were being put out next morning, and the day was warming over the autumn swells of the North Sea, a green, clinker-built tug wound her way in and among the noisy traffic which plies upon the lower Tyne. As the tug paddled out between the pier-heads, the harbour extension men who had just started world noted that she carried coal in hulk upon her deck, and as they saw she was low in the water, they guessed that her bunkers were full also, and deduced that she was off on a long cruise.

Someone commented that 'Poor, fat old Power, who got into that mess over the Caspian, was in command, and that one Joist, who had been hitherto rated merely as able seaman, was acting as mate,' and added 'that it was a terrible come-down in the world for Power. Fancy a man who had been for twenty years master of regular cargo liners, sinking down to skippering a little old clinker-built tug !'

The tug surged round the northern pier head, her sponsons just clear of the water, and then she here away into a course which would carry her a little to eastward of Bressay, which is off Lerwick on the mainland of Shetland. The tug's complement was not excessive. There were three in the stoke-hold and engine-room, and there were the skipper, mate, and one deckhand above. That made six all told; and they took it in turns to cook, and each watch messed together in its entirety. Tea was always simmering in the kettle, but meal-times advertised themselves more accurately with a warm aroma of bloaters.

Every day Captain Power with sextant and chronometer worked out the tug's position just to keep his hand in, though he could have run to Shetland by dead reckoning and made a good landfall. And every day he studied a pencilled track on the chart across the far-off northern sea, gazing at it for half his watches below with puckered brow, noting with deep anxiety every phase of the weather overhead, and finally with the aid of parallel ruler and compasses adding a short pencil line. He was following in imagination the drift-course of the derelict Caspian.

They picked up the light on Bressay one midnight, and were out of sight of the last skerry of the Shetlands when the next day broke dull and windy over the waters. There was a heavy sea running, but the little tug had burnt up most of her deck load, and rode over it drily, squattering with her paddles like some grotesque green ocean fowl.

Joist took over the watch (and the wheel) from Power at eight in the morning, but the tug's master did not go down. He stretched his limbs and peered through the sea-haze with his binoculars.

'Do you expect to find her as soon as this?' Joist queried.

'Not yet. By my reckoning she should have drifted a good bit further north and east, But ye know, matey, it's only been guess-work, and the sea's big, confounded big.'

Joist sent tobacco juice on to the wheel grating. 'If it wasn't, ' said he, philosophically, 'somebody else would have snapped her up months ago. When we saw her from the Black Pearl, she must have meandered quite 3,000 miles without being caught. I shouldn't give up hope if we didn't see her for a week after we come on the ground where you calculate she is.'

'A week!' cried Power, and then, like Vanderdecken, he spun out an oath.

'Good heavens, Mr. Mate, you don't understand what this is to me. I'm at the end of my string. Nobody will hire me to be master of another steamboat, and I'm not fit for anything else but a skipper's berth. I'm sixty-three years old this month, and I've followed the sea all my life; I can put my band to no other trade. I've got no money to go on with ; I've sunk my last sixpence in chartering this tug, and I tell you I haven't the pluck to get back to South Shields and watch my old woman starve, and see my two girls just drift on to the deuce. You can call me a coward, if you like, but that's the way I'm built ; and the Lord, Who's listening this moment, knows it. Whether He's going to let us pick up the old Caspian, and pluck her in somewhere, He only knows for certain just now, and He won't give Himself away. I don't grumble ; I guess He'll do what's best. But if He sees fit to keep the Caspian away from our tow-rope, there's one man on this little paddle-boat never going to see dry mud again, and that's old Michael Power.'

'By gum!' said Joist, with a scared face, 'you mean business, and no mistake. But what about the rest of us? I'm not desperate like that myself.'

'When this tug gives over looking for the Caspian, my lad, you may do as you like,' said Power; 'I shall net be on hand to interfere.' And he raised the binoculars again and began to peer through the haze which limited the cold horizon.

Days came and days went, some of them heavy with gale and some of them dense with snowstorm; and when it was clear enough to see a thousand yards ahead, the green tug quartered that bleak northern sea in accurate zig-zags, and when the light failed, she lay-to in the trough with banked fires, saving coal. Michael Power's clothes never left his back; he rarely ate, he rarely slept; he still more rarely left the little yellow, wooden pulpit which stood on the flying bridge between the paddle-boxes.

And the days came and the days went, and the crew of the green tug began to grow frightened of him. They were sick of being knocked about on those inhospitable seas and when they ask questions, he heard them like a man in a dream, and answered only with a grunt and a growl. But when they protested, he looked ugly in a way which scared them. Michael Power had not been a shipmaster all those years without knowing how to drive any hands who might be under him.

Yet the chase was not without interest to all on board. The green tug's business had been told before she surged out from between the Tyne pier heads. A reward of one hundred sovereigns had been promised to the man who first was lucky enough to sight the derelict, and it was worked for assiduously. A boatswain's chair had been slung high up on the tug's solitary mast, just above where she carried her light, and it was a very rare thing when some one of the crew off watch was not jockeying this, and staring with all his might over the ruffled plains of ocean.

But at last the discontent of the crew grew to a climax. They had a weighty reason for discontinuing the search. The bunkers of the tug were nearly empty; barely enough coal remained to carry them to the nearest port in Norway; and, once their fuel was done, they would drift about helpless till they starved. They were far north of all steam lanes and ship tracks, and there was no chance of being picked up. So they insisted on giving up the search and turning then and there towards a hospitable coast.

'We shall find her in two more days,' said Power; 'you'll see. And then we can re-bunker from her. She'd a matter of two hundred ton of coal on board when we left her.'

But even Joist deserted him now.

'I'm afraid it's no go, captain,' he said. 'We've been looking for her over-long already. She's either gone ashore somewhere, or else been picked up. And we've got ourselves to consider now.'

'Two more days,' said Power, 'and if I'm wrong, you can still get to Hammerfest and coal there. The tug's built of wood; you must rip the bulwarks off her and make steam on those. Now, be quiet all of you, and get to your work. I will not be answered back. If you want another argument, it's here,' he said, and patted a pocket which bulged with the outline of a revolver.

The weary crew dragged themselves off to their posts, and Power, white faced and haggard, settled himself down with his elbows on the ledge of the yellow pulpit. He rubbed his bleared eyes with the back of his grim 'hand, and with a sigh brought up the binoculars. But of a sudden a surge of colour came to his face, and his sight grew misty with wet. He put down the glasses and again mopped his eye-sockets with the back of his hand ; and then once more he peered at the sea-line.

'Only one whole stick standing,' he murmured,' and that's her mainmast ; funnel rusty red, and not a drain of smoke coming from it. The Lord isn't cruel; He can't have made another like my old beauty.'

He watched on, open-mouthed but silent, and then, simultaneously, a shout came from the one deck-hand, who was at the wheel beside him, and another from a fireman oft watch, who was lifting in the boatswain's chair at the masthead.

'Steamer on the port bow!'

'Wreck to lee'ard!' '

'It's the Caspian!'

'It's my money!'

'I saw her first!'

Power rose briskly to his feet and put the glasses in their box and snapped down the lid.

'You needn't quarrel over it,' he said. 'I saw her first myself, as it happened, but I never heard pleasanter words than what you two fellows spoke, and you shall have £100 apiece when we get that steamboat tied up against a dock wall. Now bear a hand to get that litter cleared from the jolly, and swing her davits out-board.'

The news spread below. Smoke began to billow in greasy coils from the funnel, and the paddles beat in quicker time. The green tug crawled along with a new industry, and the rust- streaked derelict waited sullenly in the trough till she drew alongside. The jolly-boat kissed the water; Joist and a fireman took the oars; and once more Captain Michael Power stood on the deck from which Fate had so unkindly shouldered him.

The two inferiors looked about them with professional appreciation, Power with lingering affection. The fireman poked his head inside the engine-room skylight, and said, 'Well, them machines are only fit for the scrap heap, anyway.'

Joist commented on the weight of the seas which had swept away boats, bridge, bulwarks, and almost all the upper works. But Power laughed like a child, and said, 'Why, there's my old meerschaum lying on the chart-house floor, and not broken. Fancy!'

They ran about the Caspian for full an hour, observing; and then began a spell of savage labour which was to be continued without intermission till the little green tug had berthed the great helpless, unwieldy hulk inside the granite harbour walls of Aberdeen.

They had first to re-bunker the tug from the Caspian's store, filling the coal into hags, and ferrying each bag across an angry sea in a cranky, twelve-foot boat ; they had to get towing hawsers passed; and then they had to still further weaken their weak crew by leaving two men on the derelict to steer her with the hand-wheel. Gales came down on them in cruel succession, and often they made a bare twenty miles of headway in the day. The water which came on board froze where it fell, and everyone who worked in the open got touched with frost-bite.

The tug was light and the tow was heavy; the big ship would neither steer nor follow. She sheered cumbersomely first to this side, and then to that, so that the hawser was forever chafing away its parcelling on the arch of the towing bridge. Again and again they had to tranship coal in the tossing jolly-boat, to scour the big ship for provisions, to stop and repair their own engines. The men on deck got covered with salt-water boils; the men below were sick with work and sleeplessness.

The story of that voyage, home is one long tale of heroic effort, but it need not be told in detail here. The professional reader can fill it in for himself; to all others it would be merely nauseating. But of all the men who went through those herculean labours, Michael Power stood out conspicuously.  It was his brain which directed everything; his hand was always the first to move. He never seemed to sleep. He never tired. Nothing was too much for him. A rosy vision dragged him on with a pull which there was no resisting. He saw himself and his wile back in the old house, with new paint everywhere, and the minister supping with them on Sundays as in time gone by. He saw his daughters set up in the millinery business of their heart's desire. And he saw his own poultry farm in the country, with a man in charge, and himself visiting it once daily to carry hack the produce to South Shields in a high-wheeled gig.

Now, it would be pleasant to chronicle the fact that all these aspirations of Captain Power's came into actual being with full completeness, but truth compels a modification of the tale. When the green tug brought her charge within the safe keeping of the granite city's port, the crew of sailors were more fit for hospital than anything else. Indeed, help had to be called in to berth her; and when the strain was taken off him, Michael Power tumbled down on the dirty floor of the tug's cabin-and slept there like a man dead for twenty-eight consecutive hours. He awoke to find himself only famous but rich.

The Caspian, beyond the loss of her boats and superstructure, had in reality suffered very little. Her engines, which had been so contemptuously relegated to 'scrapheap' value, could be put to rights for a couple of hundred pounds. And the machinery under hatches, thanks to the strong cases in which it was stowed, was as good as ever it had been. The ship and cargo had officially been considered by Lloyd's as totally lost; his wife, acting on the instructions, had bought all up for a song; and now it was all his.

In less than a month he found himself sole owner of £26,000. It was Mrs. Power who lost her head under this shower of affluence. She went back to the chapel, it is true, but the chapel circle looked upon her with suspicion. She could not help it, poor woman, but there was no mistake about the matter : she was too grand for them. So she 'verted to the Established Church, (with Michael and the girls in her train), and the chapel circle, once so much sighed after, now knows them no more.

They should be entirely happy, and yet I am afraid they are not. Michael is a churchwarden, and his name frequently appears in print. The vicar calls and receives subscriptions and afternoon tea, and they speak of him loudly to all their acquaintances as a dear and intimate friend.

The Miss Powers have forgotten all about their aspirations in the millinery line, and tell strangers that 'papa' (Heaven save the mark) 'used to be in the Navy.' But the vicar, who is a proud man and married, never asks any of the family back to take tea with him, and this is a very sore place; and, moreover, the captain of the Black Pearl also lives in South Shields, and his wife has worked her way up from below into the Chapel set. That good woman once made overtures of friendship to Mrs. Power, which were not accepted; and now, whenever the name crops up in conversation, she always brings forth a reminiscence of how poor, fat old Michael fared when he was third mate on that autumn voyage north-about from Quebec.

So really the trouble might be said to have originated with the Fates which gave Captain Power £26,000 for his salvage, instead of the third of that sum with which he would have been very well satisfied; and one is driven to the conclusion that the Fates want regulating. As they work at present, they are far too impulsive in their occasional generosity.

________________

19: The King Diamond

Launceston Examiner 12 December 1896

"SPEAKING of pluck," said the purser of the Laconic, "the bravest man, the very bravest I ever knew, was a thief."

Mr. Horrocks delivered himself of this statement during a momentary hush in the after-dinner chat of the smoke-room, and withdrew his eyes from the little, neat man with the sloping shoulders who had just come in. He  examined with interest the butt of his cigar, and carefully licked an angle of leaf which threatened to come loose.

Sir Randal Vereker (the hydraulic specialist), who had won the auction pool on the run that day, was standing coffee and liqueurs round; and the purser, after telling the attendant steward that his was a kummel and cognac, stuck the cigar into the corner of his mouth, and jingled the keys in his trousers' pocket. Then he thrust his heels out straight before him, and blew truncated cones of tobacco smoke at an incandescent lamp in the deck above.

The general talk in the smoke-room did not go on. Mr. Horrocks, as became his office, was a noted raconteur, and only Pitcairn continued his remarks on the silver question as affecting the export trade in Bradford manufactured goods. Pitcairn had crossed to New York nine times in the Laconic already, and had a notion that he knew by heart all the purser's tales; moreover, being in his capacity, of drummer a most widely travelled man himself, he quite believed that his own remarks were thoroughly well worth listening to.

"He stole the biggest diamond I ever saw," the purser remarked, meditatively, during one of Pitcairn's pauses for breath. "It was a stone that should have gone down into history on the rim of some Emperor's crown. But, so far as I know, it never came up to the surface again after that fellow annexed it."

"Probably broken up," suggested Vereker, "and sold in pieces."

The purser looked down sharply. "How did you hear about it, Sir Randal?" he asked.

Vereker laughed.

"I was only generalising," he said. "I haven't a notion of what you're talking about."

"They christened it 'The King Diamond' out at Kimberley."

"Never heard of it," said Sir Randal. "I leave Lady Vereker to specialise in diamonds for the pair of us."

"Now, there you are again," said Pitcairn. "Diamonds are just like silver― the price varies according to the quantity put on the market; and, as things are situated at present, the nations are at the mercy of traders who've got capital and brains enough to make corners. Now, if I had the management of it―"

"You haven't," the purser cut in, acidly, "and you are never likely to have. You can handle diamonds in a tie-pin, but in bulk they'd just flummox you."

"Oh, trot out your chestnut old man," said Pitcairn. "Someone wake me if I snore."

The smoke-room rustled itself into easy positions for listening, and the purser, after pretending for a minute or so to ignore the silence, suddenly looked down and said, "Oh, you want the tale, do you?"

"For Heaven's sake go on, man, and I get it over," said Pitcairn.

"Well," said the purser, "there's only one fellow in this smoke-room this yarn'll be a chestnut to, and he's new to the Laconic. It isn't a yarn I usually trot out for the benefit of passengers. It shows up one man as a specially fine sample of blessed fool, and he's a man I've a particular liking for, and he's sitting in my breeches this minute. I didn't always use to be in this Western Ocean trade. I started life at sea in the Cape run, and I'd worked up from the very bottom to being purser on the finest ship that went down there. It was a jolly snug berth, I can tell you, with lots of pickings; and as the business with the King Diamond bundled me out of it, and left me to cool my heels about the streets for a matter of twenty very lean months, it isn't a thing I chatter about through sheer pride at being sacked."

"Which line was that on?" asked Pitcairn.

"Never you mind," said the purser. "It was one of the two big ones, and you can toss up between them. But it was the popular line just then, because the other had had some accidents, and we were the popular ship. We were ram-jam full, and the skipper had let his room to a Hatton Garden Jew for a hundred guineas for the run home, and was bunking in the chart-house. We'd a record passenger list, and they were all very flush. Nothing was too expensive for them; they always betted in cases of champagne; and I guess the liquor profits alone on that run footed up to more than £2000. I tell you I felt very cock-a-hop over it. I didn't see how the firm could avoid giving me a raise."

Pitcairn began to hum, "For he's a jolly good purser," but the smoke-room cowed him into silence.

"Amongst other things, we'd about a gallon and a half of diamonds on board, and that's a kind of freight which pays in a way which would surprise idiots who only know about the cost of sending shoddy across the Western Ocean."

"Shoddy doesn't come from Bradford," said Pitcairn. "Shoddy is made―"

"Oh, kill that man, somebody," the smoke-room shouted, and once more the purser proceeded.

"The diamonds were done up in little canvas bags (all barring the big stone, which had a special sealed case to itself) and as, of course, they weren't polished, they looked like so many rusty pebbles. The bags were put in a safe, and the safe was under my bed-place. There was only one key to the safe and that lived at the end of my watch-chain. It was anxious work being responsible for those gems, I can tell you, so long as we'd any land connection with South Africa; but once we were clear, I felt pretty easy. There was an electric bell fitted up to the door of the safe, and if anybody meddled who didn't know how to unswitch it, there'd have been noise enough spread about to wake the ship. And, besides, if anybody did loot the diamonds, what were they to do with them? Madeira, and Southampton were the only places we touched, and if there was anything gone you can bet your life no one would have been allowed to quit the ship till we knew where it was.

"Now diamonds are all very well in their place, but too much diamonds in the conversation― especially when none of them happen to be yours― rather sour on one. And I can tell you the popular talk on that ship fairly made me ill at times. There were only two topics for general conversation, and those were diamonds and their prices; and when anyone wanted to be brilliantly original, he talked about the King Diamond, and draw pictures of it in lead pencil on the back of our wine-lists. I should think I must have heard the history of that infernal stone at least eighteen thousand times counting all the variations; how a Kaffir found it in the blue clay; how he swallowed it; how they gave him medicine ; how three. I.D.B. kopje wallopers from Petticoat Lane where after it; how the proper owners safeguarded it with guns and a six-ton burglar-proof box; how half the white men in the Cape did obeisance to it through iron bars at half a guinea a head; how syndicates were formed to buy up tenth shares in the gem; and all the rest of the degrading money-grubbing rubbish. I might have admired that stone myself if I'd been given a fair chance, and even have worshipped it as a mild sort of god; but the talk about it killed all my interest; and if it hadn't been for the profit it was bringing the steamer as carrier, I should have gone very near hating it. And so, as things were, I was just driven into chumming with a main called Farren out of sheer disgust for everyone else on the passenger list.

"I tell you straight that on any other trip this Farren was not a man I should have had anything more than a nod for. He was a little slip of a fellow with hock-bottled shoulders and wandering eyes, and he'd, some sort of missionary notions that I'd got no use for whatever. But he didn't talk diamonds; thought they were sinful, or something; and I tell you; after a spell with the others, that man's society used to come to me like a visit to the country. I'd tip him, the wink, and he and I'd slip away from the rest, and go down to my room, and put up our heels and rest. He'd stretch himself out on the sofa, and I'd slip my shoes and lie on the bed and just listen while he talked and preached. Times, I'd feel that grateful to him that I almost wished he'd hand round the hat for a collection after had finished."

"Well, gentlemen, things went on this way― diamonds, diamonds, diamonds, with short refreshing spells of Farren, till after we'd left Madeira, and had made half a day's steam towards home; and then a queerish thing happened. We came across a steamer lying-to right in our track.

"There's nothing in that, you'll say. Well, perhaps not, but wait a bit. This steamer, as soon as we drew abeam, made steam and bore away on our course, keeping parallel to us, about a quarter of a mile off to port. It doesn't take much to interest people on a long-voyage liner, and you can guess it wasn't long before most pairs of eyes aboard of us were turned on the other vessel, especially as she happened to be a yacht. Who was she?― plenty of people were asking, and the answer to that was simple. She was Lord Raybury's yacht, a brand new sixteen-knotter. Her picture had been in all the illustrated papers, and two of our officers had seen her before she left the yard, so there was no mistake about that matter. But what was she up to? No one could say, and our passengers made a regular industry out of betting over, it.

"We officers of the ship didn't worry our heads much about the matter. If you were to try and find out the why and wherefore of all the queer things you see in the two Atlantics, I guess you'd go first grey and then bats, and then into a lunatic asylum within three years' time. And so we looked at the yacht, hanging always in the same place off our port  beam without worrying our heads particularly as to what her little game might be. But, as I say, the passengers were different; it was a brand-new interest to the lot of them. It was an A1 topic to gamble on; and I tell you the talk in that smoke-room began to get interesting. We'd got some really imaginative and accomplished liars on our passenger list that trip, and they were always ready to back up their talk with good, solid bets.

"They became regularly amusing to listen to. Diamonds were not spoken of once after Lord Raybury's yacht joined us, and I began to think our passengers could make themselves as nice and cheery a lot as any man might want to meet. I just let Farren slide. I'd got no use for any more of his sermons-and- water talk; and the day after the yacht turned up, when he asked himself down to my room whilst I was making up some accounts after lunch. I let him know sharply enough that people who came in there had to wait for an invitation. A purser like me can't chum with cheap teetotallers of the. Mr. Farren type, who run up no wine bills and bring the steamer no profit, unless he's pretty hard up for a mate. But, mark you, that man was no fool; and he got round me two days later in a way I don't think anybody could conveniently have guessed at.

"From what turned up afterwards, I suppose he intended to play his little game directly after the yacht joined us, but the weather was a bit dirty then, and it freshened up to a snoring breeze directly afterwards, which we carried with us all the road through the bay. There was a big, ugly head sea running, which knocked a couple of knots off our pace, and the yacht was making very wet weather of it indeed. A careful skipper would have slowed her down, but her's didn't; he rammed her at it, and risked carrying everything away. He hung on exactly in his place, and all our passengers betted Lord Raybury himself was on board forcing the old man to drive her.

"But when we rounded Ushant and opened out the Channel the breeze left us and the sea went down a bit, although it was still ugly enough. And that was the time Farren came on the carpet again; and although, as I say, what he did get me the sack from, the company, I'll own straight out that no man could hare shown more real dare-devil, armour-plated pluck.

"He came up to me in, the port alleyway that day just after lunch, wobbling about on his feet like he always did when, we were in a sea-way.

" 'Mr. Horrocks,' he says, with his cheap, sickly grin, 'it's a long time since we had one of our chats together.'

" 'Tis,' said I. 'I've been' busy. I'm busy now. I'm very behind-hand with making up the ship's papers.'

"'Ah!' says he, 'you've been so taken up with this yacht business, that it's dragging you away from, your work. It seems to have made a large amount of interest in the ship.'

" 'Oh,' I said, 'that lot will bet on anything.' He laughed in a weak sort of way.

" 'Well, purser,' says he, 'I hope you've feathered your own nest over the affair?'

" 'I can't say I have,' said I, and began to move off towards my room.

" 'Pity that,' says he, 'when it's so easy.'

" 'I turned round. 'How do you mean? Could you make money out of it?'

" 'Certainly I could, if I wished to; only, as you know, I consider it wrong to bet.'

" 'Then,' said I, a bit sarcastically, 'you must have information which nobody else on this ship has got.'

"His eyes wandered over me with a look of surprise, and a lurch sent him against a cabin door. He was a man who never found his sea-legs. 'And why shouldn't I have?' he says, slowly.

" 'Well, if it comes to that, how can you of all people, know what the yacht is doing here?'

" 'Never mind, Mr. Horrocks, how I picked up the knowledge, but you can take it from me that I not only know who's on board, but I also know that yacht's exact business.'

" 'That's an, asset of value,' I said, and then stopped and considered a minute. 'Is there any consideration that I could offer which would induce you to part with the knowledge?'

" 'My dear Horrocks,' he said, 'if you want to know, of course I'll tell you. freely enough. I'd have told you any time if you'd asked me, only I don't think we've seen much of one another since the yacht's been in sight.'

"He had me there.

" 'It's a bit of a long story,' he went on, 'but if you can wait a minute or so I'll tell it you now― if you think no one is likely to overhear us, standing where we are:

" 'Certainly not, Mr. Farren,' said I. 'You come right along to my room and have a cigar. 'You won't drink whisky I know, but you shall have iced lemonade in two shakes if you care for that.' "

ii

THE PURSER of the Laconic ceased speaking, and scraped a match. When it was well alight he held the. charred end of his cigar in the flame, and watched it with interest. "I am afraid," he said, "that I am boring you gentlemen with all these preliminaries. I never could tell a tale well. Besides, there's one man in this smoke-room who could finish this yarn much better than I can. He knows a lot of facts about it that I have not even guessed at up to now."

The eyes of the smoke-room swung round till they all converged on Pitcairn  but that excellent person for once in his life looked slightly nonplussed. The purser came to his rescue. He intimated that Pitcairn's brain was quite unequal to guessing the sequel of the yarn, and again invited the only man who could finish it to do so in detail.

We began to look at one another with interest. It was occurring to each of us that we must have struck up a ship-board acquaintance with some man who only a few years previously had been concerned in a really remarkable robbery. But after a cursory survey had not shown anyone to appeared obtrusively guilty (although for some reason we few of us seemed to be  looking exactly at our best just then) a quaint feeling of restraint got hold of us. Each man seemed to feel that it was vaguely insulting to look at his neighbour, and eyes glanced up towards the deck above, and the smoke mist thickened.

But by degrees glances were lowered, and found a safe resting place on the person of Mr. Horrocks. It was Vereker who voiced the general wish.

"I think, purser," he said, "we shall have to bother you. You have shown such power as a raconteur that the other man, whoever he may be, is evidently nervous of entering into competition."

The purser grinned, and bit the end from a fresh cigar.

"Funny thing, Sir Randal," said he, "but Farren was nervous too. When Farren came into my room that day I thought he would have fainted, and for a good ten minutes he sat there on my sofa with the colours going and coming from his face like limelight in a theatre. But I didn't hurry him or anything. I let him take his time, and sat on the bed and watched the yacht through my porthole. She was there in her usual place just abeam, with about a quarter of a mile of ugly-looking water between her and us, and I was conning over in my mined how I was going to make dividends out of her.

"Farren roused me up by calling my name, and I tell you what I saw, when I turned round, fairly made me sweat. He was standing there with his back against the door, and one hand turning the key behind him as I looked. He had a revolver in his other fist, with the second finger on the trigger, and it didn't require much brains to see that, whatever else might be, he was no blooming amateur with a gun. He was looking sick enough still, but I give him credit, he came to the point like a man.

" 'Now I'll tell you, Mr. Horrocks, what that yacht's there for,' he says. 'She's come to take away the King Diamond, and I'm here to carry it across to her. I'll trouble you to make use of that safe key which hangs at the end of your watch-chain.'

"Well, I'll own freely. I was took all of a heap. 'By heavens, Mr. Farren, I began to stammer out, 'this is piracy,' but he cut me short.

" 'I quite agree with you,' he answered, 'but we'll take all that for said. I've got no time to talk, and it would annoy me very much to shoot you. I don't like you for yourself, Horrocks. But you mentioned you have a wife and family in London, and I've a respect for them. Turn round, please. Thanks. Now, you'll quite understand that my pistol is within a foot of your backbone. and if you force me to shoot you, I shall just take the key and help myself. So I want you to clearly understand that you'll only lose your life if you are obstinate through any foolish notions of being faithful to your trust and lose it quite uselessly. Kindly shift your bed-clothes on to the floor.' I did it.

"'Now switch off that infernal alarm bell which you bragged about, and open the safe.'

"I did that, too.

"'The King Diamond, please.'

"I handed him the morocco case. I heard the two clicks as he opened and shut it to make sure the gem was all right, and then he ordered me to clasp my hands behind my neck, and go out of the cabin. 'I'll leave you your gallon and a half of other gems,' said he; 'and you can swear that you defended them bravely, if you think that will save your credit. Anyway, say what you choose: I will never contradict you. Now outside, please, quickly.'

"I stepped into the alley-way, and the door slammed on my heels. I heard the bolt shoot in the lock, and I fancy it's to my credit that I didn't stay there gaping to think. I raced for the chart-house at top speed. The old man wasn't there. He'd gone on to the upper bridge, and away I went after him.

"I gave him my tale in twenty words, and instinctively we both looked towards the yacht. She had slowed down, and was edging in towards our track. Beyond a doubt Farren had spoken, truth; she was there after King Diamond, and he had signalled her out of my cabin port.

"But what was to be the next move, we could not guess. The skipper rang 'stand by' to the engine-room, and waited developments with his hand on the telegraph. 'My great Scot!' I heard him mutter, 'they're never going to have the cheek to board us! They'll stove in half our plates if they try it on with this sea running.'

"I reminded him that the yacht had two knots more speed than what we had.

" 'I know that,' says the old man. 'By gum! this is a regular Robinson Crusoe piracy business. And the worst of it is, if they come on board here with a dozen rifles, we've nothing that can stop them from just helping themselves to what they fancy.' He ran his eye round the horizon. There was a Hamburg-America  boat away astern of us, and a couple of steam colliers and half a dozen old wind jammers on one side or the other, but not such a thing as a cruiser in slight, of course, just because we wanted one.

" 'That yacht's been run away with, says he, 'that's what's the matter with her. This isn't a sort of game a man like Lord Raybury would play.'

" 'She's slowing down, sir,' said I. 'She's dropping astern of us,' and I was going to say something else, when a regular stream of yells broke out from our passengers, who were all leaning over the port rail to see what this yacht they had been betting about so industriously was up to.

" 'Man overboard! There he is! By Jove, he's sunk! No, there he is again! Throw a life-buoy, someone! It's Farren, that little missionary man. Farren!  He jumped out through a port― just squeezed out head first! He was sucked down under the propeller! He's got an arm cut off! He hasn't: he's holding on to a cork belt with that arm he isn't swimming with! He isn't swimming at all: He can't swim! Look at the way he's clawing about!'

"The mate on watch had got a whistle between his teeth before you could say 'knife.' 'Port lifeboat,' he shouted. 'Tumble aft the crew'― and then led the way himself, and went for the awning lashings with his knife. He left the bridge to the old man, and the old man rang off the engines. But a big steamer like ours carries way, and we weren't prepared, and the yacht was. They'd slowed down close by Farren, and their boat was in the water before ours had left davits, and I guessed they had picked him up and got him on board and their boat run up again before ours was half way to where the life-boys floated.

"There was nothing for it: we were just helpless; and we had to see that yacht starboard her helm and steam away for the open sea, with Farren, and the King Diamond, and my character, and all our poor old steamboat's blooming credit stowed away under her hatches. The only thing we could do was to go on to Southampton and report. But we didn't much expect to recover the King Diamond again. A man that couldn't swim, and who had pluck to drop head first out of a port into a heavy sea, and risk being chewed up by the propeller wasn't the sort to give up a plum once he'd got his fingers over it. And that is about what happened.

"The yacht had been run a way with. She was all ready for sea and victualled for a long cruise, when up comes a chap with a letter― forged, of course― written by Lord Raybury to the skipper, and telling him to accept bearer's orders in every particular. The chap, who was Farren's partner, met our steamer with, him on board by arrangement at sea, and stood by and waited for a signal.  He picked Farren up precious near drowned, but with the morocco case all right in his pocket, and then they shoved across for the Mexican Gulf. When the yacht's skipper objected he was shown Lord Raybury's letter; and finally, when coal ran out, and they found themselves in the Florida Channel, Farren and his friend rowed off in a boat, saying they would arrange about re-bunkering, and naturally enough did not turn up again; and the yacht, after drifting three days helplessly under canvas in the Gulf Stream, was picked up by a tramp, and towed into Norfolk, Virginia.

"The whole thing was about as disgustingly simple as a man could want when you knew how it had been done; and the company, who hadn't watched the way it had been worked up to, said the robbery might have been prevented. It was no use my talking. The blame thing had leaked into the papers, and somebody had got to be a scapegoat, and here was I close and handy. I guess they wouldn't have been human if they hadn't sacked me."

"And the Liverpool-New York run would have missed its best purser," said Pitcairn. "Old fellow, here's your most excellent and honoured health! But did the fools of police never stumble upon your Farren man?"

"Not they," said Horrocks. "So far as I know the fellow's never came up to the surface― till now."

"What's this?" said Pitcairn. "D'you really mean to say he's in this smoking-room right now?"

"That's what I mean," said the nurser. "I suppose he's been sick or sorry or something before; but, anyway, this is his first appearance on this ship; so he's been under the surface now for exactly five years and one month; and-perhaps he may have something to explain."

The purser lit his new cigar, and no one spoke. The only sounds were the noises of the ship and the faint clash of the seas outside.

The purser got his cigar in full blast and looked at the glowing tip meditatively.

"Dundas is the name he's shipped under here," he observed at last. "Pity for some people, isn't it, that they can't change a face as handily as they can alter a signature."

"I beg your pardon," said the little, quiet man with sloping shoulders, who sat next to Vereker, "but you apparently mean me, purser. My name's Dundas and through sea-sickness this is my first appearance in this room. Did I annex this celebrated gem?"

"You did," said Horrocks, grimly.

"Well," said the small man, "I appear to be more fortunate than I thought, and far more fond of the salt water. What do you think, Vereker? Just five years and a month ago, I think you said, purser?"

Sir Randal Vereker did not answer at once; he lay back first and laughed till tears ran down the crow's feet at the corners of his eyes. But at last he sobered down and got his voice again, and, said he, "Purser, I'm afraid you've got the wrong pig by the ear this time. Five years ago from now, Mr. Dundas was second secretary in the British Embassy at Pekin. I was doing work at Shanghai then, and saw him constantly. In fact, I've known him all my life."

The purser said, "Oh!" and looked both red and foolish.

Dundas, however, had some more to add on the subject. "Your man Farren," he said, "is evidently very much like me in personal appearance?"

"Or I shouldn't have tumbled into making such a mistake," said the purser.

"Precisely. Well, just before I came here, I happened to be in Shanghai, and a doctor I knew there told me they'd got my double in hospital. Out of curiosity I went to see him, and I must say the pair of us were us much alike as two  hock-bottles. It wasn't a flattering find, because the other poor fellow was clean  mad. He'd a lump of rough crystal, almost as big as a pigeon's egg, which he fancied was a diamond that everybody was trying to steal from him. Curious shaped crystal it was, too, with markings like three accurate concentric circles indented in one end."

"My giant Scot!" said the purser, "and a cross just round the corner from the other end! Long-shaped, was it, with a bit of a faint yellow smudge down one side?"

"That's the thing," said Dundas.

"Why man!" shouted the purser, "it's the King Diamond itself you're talking about. There couldn't be another like it."

"But I tell you it was no diamond at all. It was only some sort of crystal that was not hard enough to scratch glass, and no man who was sane could have taken it for anything else when he came to handle it."

"Whew!" said  the purser, and mopped a moist forehead with his pocket-handkerchief.

"Did you ever have the gem you were talking of in your fingers?" asked Vereker.

"Come to think of it, I never did," the purser admitted.  "It was sealed before me, and then delivered into my charge, and I gave a receipt."

"Then, if an outsider might form a theory," said Vereker, "the real stone was stolen somewhere at the Cape, and a forgery sent home so that the theft might not be discovered till as late an hour as possible. How those thieves out there, must have chuckled when they heard of Farren and Co. coming, 'ex machina' to help play their game."

"Christopher Moses!" said the purses thoughtfully. "You're right, Sir Randal. That is the game for a thousand. And where's that stone now by any chance?"

"Ah, there you're asking me too much," said Vereker.  "But I shouldn't say it was broken up. When it had officially ceased to exist, it could be very easily smuggled out of the Cape; and once it got carted away to the East there would be heaps of purchasers ready  to buy and hold their tongues for a little discount. A Shah or an Indian Rajah never cares about a big diamond's history so long as he gets it snugly into his treasury. Very likely― to hazard another guess― it was brought home in your own steamer, not many yards away from its bogus cousin. That would have been the safest way to dispose of it."

The purser sighed. "Well," he said, "I shall give an official report of this to my old company, for the sake of helping to clear my own ticket. And they can act how they please. But if that stone were mine I guess I'd sell my present interest in it for just two fingers of whisky."

Pitcairn struck a bell, and the smokeroom steward came towards him.

" 'Apropos.' " he said. "What'll everybody have? It's my shout: I fine myself drinks 'round for interrupting. I thought it was merely a ship's chestnut we were going to have. I'd no idea the purser was going to put his foot in it so deliciously with Mr. Dundas."

__________________

20: Run Down

A Terrible Channel Experience.

Wagga Wagga Express 23 September 1899

'HULLO! there's Calvert, of all people!' I heard a brisk voice say behind me. 'Now, he's the very man. I'll introduce you to him this minute, and then we'll go below and see your room, and backsheesh the steward into civility.'

I turned my head and saw Vanvennan elbowing his way amongst the crowd which swarmed on the steamer's bridge deck between the gangway and the first-class companion. He had a bundle of rugs under his arm, and a pair of ladies in his train. To these last he introduced me:

'Mrs. Codrington, and my sister Mabel. They're going across to New York to stay with some friends, and then, when the warm weather comes, they're off with a party to see the Yosemite Valley. They'll be met on the wharf at the other side, but up there they'll be two lone lorn females, and want you to give them the benefit of your countenance, and do the genial watchdog business. By the way, you're taking matters pretty coolly: you look either as if you had been settled here for a week, or else had no connection with the steamer whatever. I suppose you are crossing by her?'

I laughed.

'Oh, yes,' I said ; 'I came on board her sixteen minutes ago; saw the purser, and found I knew him; made him give me the best room in the ship instead of the one I'd got; carted my things in there one-time, and locked the door; and then cleared out here, and didn't worry any more.'

'You're an old, bold hand,' said Vanvennan, 'and many years of wandering have made you perfect in the art of looking after yourself. What do you think of the boat?'

'Oh, she's a fine steamer, and she'll do a quick passage. Moreover, because she is a foreigner, they'll feed us extremely well, which is a great thing for this time of year.'

'Then do you think we shall have a very bad crossing?' Mrs. Codrington asked, anxiously.

'We may have a breeze, or we mayn't; the Western Ocean is always delightfully uncertain about that. But I was thinking about the cold. There'll be precious little going out on deck; meals will be the most interesting item of the day; and therefore a good table is a distinct pleasure to look forward to.'

'Do you think there is any danger,' said Mrs. Codrington.

I smiled. 'Remarkably little. Considerably less, than you would be exposed to if you travelled by train for a week backwards and forwards between London and Glasgow. In fact, if you care to give me the sum of one penny apiece, I'll insure you each for £1,000 against fatal accidents all the way across, like the weekly papers do ashore. Come, now, will you let me do that stroke of business?'

'Save your coppers,' said Vanvennan, laughing. 'Calvert is too grasping. Come along down below and get settle you your quarters, and then bid me an affectionate good-bye. I shall have to clear if I don't want to be taken on. Ta-ta, Calvert, old chap. so awfully good of you to take these damsels under your charge. Hope you'll all have a good time on the other side and not get frozen on the road. Good-bye.'

We hove up at dusk that afternoon, and because the Channel outside was white with an ugly, choppy sea , there were fiddles on the table at dinner and  extraordinarily few diners. I sent down dry champagne and biscuits to Mrs Codrington's room, and then, scaling myself next to the purser, made a gorgeous meal.

'We do ourselves well here in the grub line, don't we?' said the purser.  'Better than the English boats. We're dragging all the passenger trade away from them now. Come along down to my room for your coffee, and we'll have a quiet smoke before I get to work squaring up my papers. Lord! I wouldn't care to be the Old Man tonight! He'll be perched there freezing on the upper bridge till we're bang clear of the Channel, and very likely for the next twenty-four hours after that if the weather's at all thick. He's just got over a thousand human lives on this ship, and I guess they give him all the responsibility he's any use for. Steward, bring me down a bottle of liqueur cognac to my room. Now, Mr. Calvert, if you're ready.'

The purser and I talked Western Ocean shop during the burning of the Cuban cigars, and then he turned to his work, and I slipped off to the smoke room and read the illustrated papers. It was eleven o'clock before the smoke room steward hinted that the hour of closing had come. I went out into the night, a black misty night full of rain and spindrift driving down from the nor'-nor-west. I cocked my eye and saw the skipper and two mates patrolling the upper bridge; on the beak of the deck ahead of me were three men in glistening oilskins; in the crow's nest forward were two others; and I shivered luxuriously, and I thanked the fates that I was a mere passenger who could travel in absolute safety and have no watch to keep. And then I went below, made fast my portmanteaux, and turned in. Sleep humoured me at once.

I woke to the tune of colliding ships and the full orchestra of Death. To say that my senses came to me without flurry and at once would be too great a claim. By some violent shock from beneath I was banged up against the iron roof of the cabin. I pitched back on the floor, and for a minute or so lay there stunned. Something serious was going on.

I became dully conscious of this, and with an effort roused myself and stared curiously at the curtain-rod of the bunk, which lay doubled up and twisted between my hands. Then it began to be borne upon me that the ship was awake with screaming and the trampling of frightened feet, and then the interpretation of these things came to me in a flash. We were in collision.

A man snatched open my door, stammered out, 'We're going down! Oh! what shall I do?' and ran away shouting. The ship was full of noise and darkness and hammering. The propeller had stopped; no light came when I turned the electric switch; and we had so heavy a list to starboard (my side) that already the ports were covered most of the time. It was precisely clear that the steamer was in a bad way, and one's first and most natural instinct was to bolt for the upper decks.

I'm ashamed to say that I had already rushed outside the door with this idea before I got my wits in hand again. But then I pulled myself up, and went back and dragged on some heavy serge clothes over my pyjamas, and added boots and a whisky-flask; after which I pounded off along the alley-ways to the room which Mrs. Codrington shared with the Vanvennan girl. The door of it was slamming noisily with the roll of the ship.

I looked inside. The place was empty, and from out of the darkness came a swirl of water which ran coldly about my knees. I guessed they had gone to the upper deck, and ran there myself with the best of pace. There was a feel about the steamer that I knew. She lay down sodden and numb in the sea, and rose to the waves no more. I had felt that sluggish, sullen roll before on another ship. We had found her drifting, and boarded her in mid-ocean, and had just time to leave her decks before she sank down to the ocean floor. The mail steamer was going to repeat that diver— and she was carrying a thousand human lives.

The bridge deck lay a-tilt like the roof of a house, and it was carpeted with humanity. From the upper bridge, rockets climbed up high into the night in one never-ending stream of yellow flame. Orders, prayers, shrieks, and threats were being hurled about in every tongue that Europe knows. The stoke hole crews, mad, with fear, were raging like devils unchained round the grips and chocks of the lifeboats. Naked emigrants were with them; sick men who could hardly crawl tore at boat-awning with their teeth. The ship's officers and the few deck hands were swept aside like straws.

Then a bellow from the steam siren drowned all the clamour, and at that instant the moon slid out, and burnt like a great white lamp through a gap in the racing clouds. A shout could not be heard above that din, and the shouts died away whilst the trembling fingers tumbled on at boat-grips, and rived at the stops on the falls. Then the captain on the upper bridge let go the lanyard on the siren, and gave his orders before the silence could be broken.

'Keep your heads, and all will be saved,' he cried in German. 'Women stand by the starboard boats, and men away to port. Boat crews to their stations. I will shoot the first swine that disobeys me.'

Then he repeated the words in English and French and Ivorsk, till his cry was lost once more in tho raging clamour. Now, for myself I had seen the uselessness of thinking about my own hide till matters were somewhat further advanced, and remembered (with grim amusement) how I had offered to heavily insure two ladies' lives for the trifling premium of two copper coins. So from the moment of coming out on deck I had been employed in hunting for these charges amongst the mob, and had not been sparing vigour in the process.

There were nine hundred people wedged into one group, and it was not a possible thing to go through these singly. So I had gone round outside the bulwark rail, occasionally climbing up by a stanchion or a stay, and had gazed down on the huddle of faces from above; and when I found the two that were wanted I fought my way to them with elbow and shut fist as required.

Mrs. Codrington wore a flannel dressing-gown; and as the other girl had turned out in a singularly becoming garment of cotton, I gave her my own pilot-jacket, and stole also for her (by brute force) a spotted carriage rug from a Polish Jew.

'Now,' I said, 'there's string in the pocket of that jacket, and this thing will make you an elegant skirt. You'd much better stop being frightened, and then we can get along more comfortably. You aren't going to get drowned, or anything like it. I've insured you for a thousand apiece to Vanvennan and I can't afford to let you come to grief at that price. When these fools have stopped struggling and squealing, you shall go off in a big boat and join another steamer. We shall have ten round us in half an hour. Look at those rockets.'

Mrs. Codrington gripped my arm. 'Then you think that we have a chance of―?' she began, and 'B-m-m-m-m' said the great steam horn from above.

When we could hear ourselves speak again, and whilst the captain was giving his orders from the upper bridge, the purser came to my elbow.

'Here, Calvert,' he said in my ear, 'you're a man. Those port boats won't lower anyway; she's listed too much over. I don't know whether we can get the starboard boats in the water without swamping with this sea running, but we've got to try; and if anyone goes off in them except the boat crews, it's got to be the women and kids. Same old yarn, y'know. So you've got to peg out anyway, and you may as well do it in a way that'll make you respect yourself. Ah, would you?' He knocked down a frantic German who was battling his way towards one of the starboard boats with a revolver outstretched. He wrenched away the weapon, and gave it me. 'Here's a gun, old man. Just you wire in and murder the swine if they try to swamp you. They'll soon see those port boats won't lower, and they'll be hack here in a minute.'

Now a peculiar feeling had come over me. I had made up my mind that I had got to die, and didn't waste time by being sorry for myself over it.

All my brain was turned on two objects. First, I had got to keep my ticket clean by seeing that the two girls I was looking after were sent away clear of the mess. And second, I wanted to leave a very red mark on the cowards who were wasting other people's lives because they could not save their own. That last wish amounted to a mania. I was ashamed of being a man whilst some of those brutes lived and could call themselves men also.

One of the starboard boats had been lowered already, packed with people. But before she was in the water the after fall had jammed in the block, and because the other took charge, she tilted bow-downwards, and spilt her wretched freight into the charging seas.

Another boat was swung out, and lay beating against the rail as the steamer rolled. I would have hustled my charges into her, but she was crowded in an instant and lowered away. She took the water safely, shoved off, and with oars straddling out on either side, crawled away over the inky water like some uncouth insect. Then came the rush. The list had grown till the port boats hung inboard against their davits, and the waiting crowd beside them saw that road to escape was cut off for good.

In half the tongues of Pentecost they screamed into the windy night that the ship was sinking, sinking— and each brute among them thought that his own life was worth more than all the honour and the wealth the world combined.  They poured down the slope of the decks in a raving hordes— Polish and Russian Jews, Hungarian peasants fleeing trout the conscription, Italian thieves, Belgian stokers— a foul gust from the dregs of Europe; and with then came men who ought to have known better, but who had gone mad also, smitten by this time infection of terror.

I had slung the two women on to the floor grating of No. 3 lifeboat and stood with my back against the gunwale. One of the mates, a gigantic Swede, rose up beside me, his teeth gritting with fury, and a belaying pin gripped in his hand. Three deck hands were sweating and swearing at the falls, getting the boat lifted right off her chocks and swung outward. The other women on the decks were knocked down and stamped on, and the mob of men leaped at the boat.

It was no time for words. The mate and I hit out at every face we could reach with savage fury, but none turned to hit again. They scrabbled at the boat's gunwales with their hands, and those behind tore the leaders back. I could have beat in their faces in my hate; but— I could not bring myself to shoot: there was nothing there worthy of a bullet.

The boat was lifted from its bed, and swung outward. The steamer had ceased to roll, and the seas were coming green on her bridge-deck rail. The boat was floated almost before the falls were let go, and a wave came up and swayed her dear. The crowd shrieked and drew back up the slanting decks. I leaned up against a davit, my breath returning to me in laboured pants. But the Swedish mate left me, and if ever murder showed in a man's eye, I saw it gleaming from his then; and shrieks coming through the darkness told what his fury was doing. He, at any rate, I told myself, would die warm.

But the lust for maiming had left me. The last of the boats had gone, and the women and children who were left had got to die with us men, and with those who were infinitely less than men.

The rockets were still spouting up in unwearied series from the upper bridge, and once I saw the purser pass me, jauntily as before, with a lit cigar in, his fingers, and an assurance between his teeth that all would be well. But I heeded him little. The child of Death was nipping the with its agues, and the hopeless minutes were dragging out intolerably. With a life belt I might― but no: there were women left, and I had got to stay.

Then of a sudden there burst out a roar, and a clang of iron, and a gush of scalding steam; and the decks ripped and splintered, and the steam rushed down in grey, peeling clouds . No, not that death! I vaulted the rail and sank.

The instinct of the swimmer is curious. I had gone over the side quite satisfied that escape was hapless, intending to drown with one long plunge.  But no sooner did the icy water thunder in my ears than the old instinct made me strike out for the surface. But I could not reach it. I swam on for what seemed to be minutes, hours, years, thousands of years; my arms aching, the veins like to burst through my skin; and then it came upon me that the steamer had sank, and I was being dragged in her swirl down, down, down, to the, dark sea floor; down, down, where it was too cold— down— down.

I OPENED my eyes and blinked; blinked again, and saw dimly the rough sea living-room of fishers. It was wainscoted with hunks round to the rudder case, and on the forward bulkhead was a fireplace resplendent with brass. I imagined I was in one of the bunks, but was not very certain about it, and so coughed inquiringly.

Somebody came to my side. I pondered awhile, and then remarked, 'I seem, somehow, to know that coat.'

'It's yours,' said the someone. 'Don't you remember? I'm Mabel Vannerman.'

This was more satisfactory. I woke further, and inquired, 'Where's the other— Mrs.— er— I forget?'

'Codrington,' said a faint voice from one of the bunks. 'Here.'

I was getting on. 'I'm afraid you must have lost all your clothes?' was the next thing that occurred to me.

'Yes,' said the voice, 'and such a lovely diamond star!'

Then came a torrent of sobbing, and, between sobs, 'Oh! how could he be horrid to think of such a thing now? There are only sixty picked up, they say. And all those other poor people lost! Isn't it awful to think about?'

'Very probably,' I said. 'But we've saved our own skins, and I don't think we've anything to be ashamed of. It wasn't my fault that someone gathered me up though.'

Then a man came in and stared at me thoughtfully— a fisherman, in clumsy sea boots and brown-patched oilskin.

'Closeish squeak you've had, mister,' said he, slowly. 'We just passed that other boat what run you down, she'd about seven foot of her bow gone, and looked pretty sick, I tell you. We hailed her to know if she wanted anything; but they said, "No". Got her steering gear fixed up again, and was going to put into Portsmouth. She's a Welsh collier bound there. Rum do this has been. Where was your steamer hit?'

'Haven't a notion.'

'Well, what were her water-tight bulkheads doing?'

'Very sorry, but can't tell you.'

'Hm!' said the man. 'Then what do you know about it?'

'Nothing,' said I, 'except that I am here now, and that just now I imagined I was drowned.'

'Well,' said the man, 'you won't do much towards dirtying any poor beast of a sailor's ticket at the inquiry, that's one blessing. I'll send you in a can of tea, and then you'd better sleep. We're standing in for Penzance to bring the news, because there ought to be a reward kicking about, and by the time you wake we should be there. So long!'

____________________

21: The Race

Barrier Miner (NSW), 23 December 1901

"THE fact is," said Mr. Gedge, the shipowner, with cheerful brutality, "this new skipper is young enough to be the son of either of you two, and I'm quite sure it's time I had new blood in the line."

"Yes, sir," said Captain Cray, breathing a prayer that he was to be the one to be retained.

"Certainly, sir," said Captain Shaw, wiping the cold perspiration from his face.

"Now you've both been very good servants to me, and so I don't want to have tbe fun of sacking either of you, so perhaps one of you will give way and resign. Come, Cray, you're a man of property, aren't you?"

"For God's sake, Mr. Gedge, don't joke about it. You know what this means to me." He looked pitifully across at Shaw,

That elderly mariner shook his head. " My missis and kids will have to go to the workhouse the week after I'm sacked. We've had illness all along, and could save nothing. And then there are eight kids. I'm not grumbling, but there are eight― boys all of them. And she says there's another due for Christmas. I'm sure I've sailed the Clarence for you with as good economy and profit as any skipper could have done. She's not a steam-boat everyone would fancy either, when there is a breeze on. I tell you, one of these days, when there's a ' bad run of sea, she'll go down under somebody in a hurry. It does seem hard to be sacked from her, Mr. Gedge. You might let me see her out to the end of her time."

Gedge shrugged his shoulders and waved a hand. "Can't be done, my good fellows. One of you's got to clear out, and there's no getting over it. But I'll make you a sporting offer. The boats are both, under the coal drops in Alexandra dock, getting loaded. You can have them into the river by next tide. You can both of you clear Tyne pier heads neck and neck,  and you're both consigned to London. Now the man that gets there first, and into dock, and tied up, keeps his job, and if that isn't a Christmas box to his liking, I don't know what he would choose. Does it strike you that you ought to be in London river on Christmas morning? Come, don't look so glum about it, both of you. I'm not restricting you to coal expenditure this trip. You may burn as much as you please, and get as much out of them as you can."

Here was the offer then, and as Mr. Gedge, the owner, was autocratic, the two elderly shipmasters had no appeal in the matter. It was of no use attempting to work upon Mr. Gedge's gratitude for past service, or appeal to his better feelings generally. As he was quite ready to own, freely and openly, be was not burdened with such encumbrances. He did not run steamboats for sentiment, but purely and entirely for the purposes of business.

So the two went out of the office heavy-footed and sad at heart, each feeling that if he could not contrive to hustle his old friend into ruin within the next week, he would have to bear up for a certain most undesirable refuge himself, with a wife and children in his company.

With heavy jocularity Captain Shaw began to hum "Christmas Day in the Workhouse" to a doleful ditty of his own.

"Shut up, you fat-headed fool," said Cray.

"It's a poor heart that never rejoices," "said Shaw. "I'd almost asi soon go  to the house myself, old tin tacks, as send you there."

"Dang you, stop it! But I say, hinny, is there no way of keeping to windward of it? Curse that cheeky-faced young Gedge. His father, the canny, man, would never have served as this trick; I'd not be delicate fingered if I could see a way of getting even with him."

"He's the owner," sighed Shaw, as if that fact excused everything. "You win. Your boat can do half a knot better than my Clarence, if you push her."

"Yes, but who's going to do the poshing? Gedge fired, my old chief that I've bad this last ten years, and last trip I had to ship a young spark that's just out of the shops and never saw a tender marine engine in his life. Give him brand new triple expansions with all the late contraptions, and I dare say he'd run them all right. But he's no idea of nursing engines like one has to do in our trade. He'd have the whole engine-room crumpling up about his ears if he tried pushing her at all. Besides there's my boilers. Who's going to guarantee that they'd stand an extra three ton of coal a day? Seven's what we burn. With ten, to my mind, we'd have the steam breaking loose, and all hands in the stokehole cooked like so many puddings."

Captain Shaw brightened a little at this tale of misfortune. After all, self-preservation does come first. But at that moment his attention was drawn away to another matter. A smart young man walked smartly up from behind them, face half-round, and touched his hat tot the pair of them. "Good afternoon, Captain Shaw. Afternoon, Captain Cray."

The greeting was returned uncivilly. In fact, one might say that they snarled at him. Here before them stood the fortunate creature, who, purely on the ground of youth, was next voyage to supplant one of them on the bridge of one of Mr. Gedge's steam colliers.

The young man, however, was not to be turned away. He laughed, and asked them to adjourn with him for a glass of beer; and, having some dim foreboding that after all it was well to be on good terms with the rising star, they somewhat ungraciously consented.

" Here's your health, Captain Crowther," said Cray. "Long may you keep out of collision."

" Here's your health, hinny," said Shaw. "Long may you keep out of the workhouse. It seems to me that that's the place old sailors have got to bear up for nowadays."

"I don't see what the workhouse has got to do with either of you," said Crowther cheerfully.

They looked at him with dull eyes. "Young Mr. Gedge says one of us have got to make room for you," said Shaw.

Captain Crowther commented on the behaviour of Mr. Gedge with fluency and point.

"Gedge roped me in under false pretences. He said if I'd handle a collier for him for a month or two, he'd give me one of his deep-water tramps. Now he has only two deep-water tramps, and it has come to my knowledge that he has promised them already to men who've invested a good lump of money in them. So it seems he thinks he's caught me to be just a coasting skipper for him."

"Let me' tell you," said Captain Cray with ruffled dignity, " that coasting skippers are as good sailors as you'll find between here and the hot place."

"Quite agree with you, only it's not the game for me. I don't want to be just two days between ports, watch her whilst she loads up, and then bustle back again.  I want to go about, and smell blue water, and see the world a bit. It's sure you both did the same, gentlemen, before you married and settled down!"

There was an affirmative sigh from each of the elders.

"Well, I have had the offer of a tramp in Liverpool banging on for a day or two, and just an hour ago I had it clinched by telegraph. She's owned by a good firm, and I shouldn't wonder but what it turns out to be a nailing good thing. So I'm provided for, anyway. The question is about you two and Gedge. I should pin Gedge, both of you, if I were in your shoes. How long have yon been in the service of this measly firm?"

"Twenty-six years," said Cray, "counting his time and his father's."

"Twenty-seven for me." " And at what screw?"

"Ten pound a month for each of us. We never liked to push for a newer scale of wage. We waited for him to offer it, but he never did. Old Mr. Gedge promised to raise us, but he died, and his son never seemed to remember."

"Well, you've earned the firm! enough anyway, and it's high time they
provided you with a pension."

"Hang your pension," said Cray violently. "I'm as well able to work as you are, and a dash sight better able to navigate."

"Same here," said Captain Shaw.

"You wait with your pensions, hinny, till they're asked for," said Cray. " All we want is to be kept on at our jobs."

"I am sure I beg pardon, gentlemen," said Crowther, somewhat abashed. "I only meant to try and do you a good turn― and that skunk Gedge a bad one. Indeed I had a scheme in my head to keep things running on as they were. But perhaps you wouldn't care to hear it? Perhaps you think it an impertinence of me to interfere in the matter further?"

"We beg your pardon, captain," said Cray humbly, "but if you can help, it will be a charity. If it isn't you that turns us out, it will be some other chap. The fashion to-day is all for young officers, and although both Captain Shaw and I are clear sighted, and capable, and hard as ever we were, and have all the experience, we're old, and we've got to go."

Crowther looked round to make sure that no one else was in earshot, and then leaned forward and whispered. A pretty enough plot he had made of it, but the two old sailormen looked at one another with doubtful eyes as they listened. Loyalty to their owner was an early article of their simple creed, whatever treatment that owner might deal out in return. They did not jump at Captain Crowther's plot by any means.

But Crowther was a young and pushing man, with a high opinion of his own cleverness, and once he had made offer of a scheme, he intended to see it accepted. He pushed it home with scornful argument. What did they owe to Gedge? Hadn't he got any amount of splendid service from them, and merely swindled them a wages as a return?  And there was the work-house! Did they want to go to that abode of horror with their wives and bairns?

"By the Lord!" said Crowther, " I'm sick of you chaps. You deserve to starve, if you will bold with these old obsolete notions, and you won't lift a finger to help yourselves― or, what is more to this point, won't let me lift a finger. I don't know whether it's occurred to you but I'm the man that's to take all the risk. You two are asked to do nothing."

They had not looked at it in that way. They were slow-witted men, but the awful horror of the workhouse, and the nearness of it, worked them up to unwonted heights, and by degrees the points of Captain Crowther's scheme soaked into their systems. That young man did not overdo it. He got them slowly, and reluctantly to give their adherence, and then took himself off. He said he hid many things to arrange before tide time.

"But make no error about it, I'll be there. I'll chuck him aboard the Hope when she pulls out of dock, and my tip to you, Captain Cray, is don't be in too big a hurry to investigate."

"Shall be too busy," said Cray. " I'm my own pilot down the river, and being a careful man I've no time to investigate nothing till I'm well clear of Tyne pier heads, and a course set."

"That's all right, then," said Crowther, "and as I can see Captain Shaw understands his part of the job also, I'll just leave you to it."

IT WAS SOME half dozen hours later than this that the two colliers Hope and Clarence were trimmed down to their marks under the coal drops in Alexandra dock, and, casting off from thence, began with much clattering of winches and straining of wires to warp across the scummy water of the dock entrance.

The news of the match between them had spread, and a feeble crowd collected under the lamplight on the dock head, as they worked through the lock, and wondered what sort of a drayhorse race of it, two such elderly ugly coal-pushers could make. But superior to such criticism the two grimy vessels pushed into the dirty swirling river beyond, the Hope leading, the Clarence dose on her counter.  From out of the gleaming dusk of the river a boat was sculled up vigorously, and ran alongside of the Hope.

A rope's end trailed overboard near her forerigging that the boat's sculler went for almost as if he expected it to be there, and then, drawing his scull inboard out of the stern notch, he ran forward over the thwarts, caught the rope's end and made it fast. In the bottom of the boat (slopped over by a tidy drop of water) was something which moved inside a sack, and which at first sight reminded one of those unfortunate calves that one occasionally sees at railway stations. But as a pair of human feet projected from the lashings of the sack, and as very human profanity and threats came in muffled torrents from inside, one gathered that there had been a slight mistake somewhere, and that a person unknown was being inconvenienced.

The sculler, once he had made fast the line; in the bows of his boat, wasted vary little time in ceremonial. He picked up the bundle in the sack, cuffing  it heartily when it struggled and kicked, and with a great effort raised it to his shoulder. Then he climbed up on to one of the thwarts of the boat and managed with a violent heave to get his burden on to the grimy iron bulwark of the Hope. Some more muffled profanity came out of the sack, and the man in the boat laughed, and gave it a shove, and toppled it down on the iron deck of the collier four feet below. Then he cast off the rope from the bows of his own boat, shipped his scull again, and dropped away astern

The collier under slow steam continued stolidly to make her way down the crowded river under Captain Cray's able pilotage, with the Clarence following close astern. The bundle with the boots sticking out of it lay where it fell on the Hope's rusted deck, and only once, attracted by the noise it made, did a passing sailor peer at it through the dusk and make as if he was going to inspect.

But a sharp rough voice from the bridge restrained him. "You there! Get along with your work, God bless you, and don't stand dawdling."

The man trotted away forward, and Captain Cray attended to working his ship down the fairway of the Tyne.

It was not to be wondered at that he had no eye except for this duty. It was difficult, dangerous work, and he prided himself on never having had an accident. On the other collier, Captain Shaw was picturing his fellow skipper's emotions on this matter very accurately.

A stiff sea, with a cold easterly breeze that carried snow with it, mot them outside the pier heads. The heavily loaded collier wallowed and dipped, and generally carried the remains of a sea splashing and creaming about her lower deck. The person in the sack, be it remembered, was also on the lower deck. It was quite usual weather for Christmas time on the North Bea, and many a time on former trips both Captain Cray and Captain Shaw had wished Mr. Gedge, their owner, could have been on board, and on the bridge to share it with them.

They were well abreast of the Tees, and the easterly breeze was changing into a snoring gale, when an order from Captain Cray caused the person in the sack accidentally to be found.

The sailorman who made the discovery groped up through the darkness on to the bridge, and reported it.

"Chap tied up in a bag, sir, on the lower deck."

"Oh! who put him there?"

"Don't know, air."

"Drunk, I suppose?"

"Don't know, sir. He'd swearing, kinder feeble and amateurish like."

"Well, take him forward, and let him warm himself. Have you the bogie in the forecastle lit? I shall hand him over to the police in London. I'll have no qualified stowaways getting free deck passages on my ship."

It was some hours later that the same deck hand again sought out Captain Cray on the bridge.

"Beg pardon, sir," he said with a snigger, "but the young chap you told me to take forrard says he's Mr. Gedge, the owner."

" Rubbish, What for do you bring a tale like that to me, you fool? It's rubbish."

"Well, so I thought, sir. But there's one of the firemen, who's seen Mr. Gedge ashore, says if it isn't him, it's the exact spit an' image of him."

"Ugh," said Cray. "I suppose there'll be no satisfying you, unless I see the man. Fetch him up here. I'll cure his impudence."

I think Captain Cray deserves much credit for keeping to his part when that meeting came. Mr. Gedge, hatless, dishevelled, soaked, half-frozen, was led as a dangerous prisoner on to the collier's little narrow bridge, and for a fall minute Captain Cray was so absorbed in scouring the murky North Sea night that he did not notice him. It was only when he snapped out, "Damnation, Cray, how long am I to be kept waiting here?" that the ancient mariner started round and dragged him into the glow of the binnacle lamp.

" My whiskers, but it is Mr. Gedge after all! Why, who'd have thought of seeing you here, sir! What did yon come for? How was I to know it was you? Why didn't you let me know earlier you were on board, and of course you should have had my room, sir. And to think you should have come this trip of all others! Oh, Lord ! Oh, Lord ! what shall I do?" .

"Come down to your room with me, captain, and get me some whisky. I'm half dead with cold. That filthy fo'castle is like an ice house."

"Certainly, sir, certainly. Oh, but why did you come this trip of all others?"

"Here, can't you lend me some dry, clothes ? I'm sodden with wet."

They were in the charthouse by this time. "I shouldn't bother to change if I were you," said Cray gloomily.

Gedge stared at him. "Whatever bee has the old fool got in his bonnet now?"

"Oh, it's right enough, and I mean what I say. You can change later, after we're picked up."

"Picked up!"

"Well, if you will have it, this old packet's going to be ran down presently, and I shouldn't wonder but what the Clarence docs it, and then stands by to pick us up afterwards. I most say I never reckoned on there being each a bad run of sea as there it to-night, when Shaw and I made the bargain. I doubt if a boat will live in it. Those that'll be saved will be those that jump on to her when she cuts us down."

"You murdering old fools, who set yon on to this devil's game?"

"You did."

"Me? What have I to do with it r

"You said you were going to fire one, either me or Shaw, and you set us on to race, just for your fun. D'ye think we've got no feelings of our own? l can tell you we have. So we just fixed it that as one man was to be sacked, we'd sack one of your boats too. We knew you run them uninsured now, because the clubs want too big rates on such rotten old tanks as those."

"My God, but you're risking my life by this game."

"Well, you shouldn't have come. You're here by no invitation of mine."

"Look here, Cray, you're in my employ. I order you to see that this collision does not take place."

"Fat lot I care for your orders. Haven't Captain Shaw and I tossed up for who's to be sacked, and didn't I lose? I'm practically out of your employ now, Mr. Gedge.  Any minute you may see the Clarence's stem head slicing into this charthouse, just by your elbow there.''

"Curse you, let this stop. I take you back into my employ. I promise not to discharge you."

"Well, what about Captain Shaw?"

"Oh, old Shaw must take his chances."

"Not good enough. Here, sir; we may as well divide up this sup of whisky. It would be a pity to leave it behind, and we shall find it bitter cold directly. I'd like to know how you came on board though "

"Through no wish of my own, but how I got here is no concern of yours. Surely I can come and go on one of my own steamboats without being cross questioned by one of my own servants."

"You didn't come here willing. They tell me you were tied up in a bag, for all the world like a calf."

"Confound you, leave my private affairs alone, you prying old idiot! And look here, about the running down nonsense, it must stop."

Captain Cray pat two red hands deep into his trousers pockets, and looked woodenly up at the swinging lamp which jerked with vicious tugs at its lanyards.

"It must stop," Gedge repeated angrily.

"So you say. But it seems to me I give the final word to that, and my final word is that things are going on as they are. Shaw'll be into us any minute now indeed I'm surprised he hasn't cut us down before this; and then, well I'll probably be drowned, and the trouble will be settled so far as  I'm concerned that way. There are several societies that look after the widow and kids of a shipmaster that's gone down at sea on his vessel."

Mr. Gedge was now a nervous man; indeed he had his full share of pluck; but Cray's stolid unemotional fatalism daunted him. Life was sweet and he was prepared to make sacrifices. Still, for all that he did not show the white feather openly.

"And all this fuss is because I wanted to give you chaps a chance of getting into a better line. Well, if running my old coal-boats suits you, I'm sure you can stick to them."

"Will you put that down on paper?"

"Certainly."

"Before a witness?"

"If you like."

"And shove in a clause saying that if yon change your mind, and do fire either of us, that man is to have £1000? for past services rendered to the firm?"

"Well, say a couple of hundred."

"One thousand poonds, hinny; if you're thinking of making s new bargain, you'd better be quick with it. Shaw may drive the Clarence into us any minute unless I go on deck and give a new course that'll take us right out into the North Sea, and clear of him."

"Have it as you like. Here, I'll write the thing out, and you can bring in the mate to witness my signature if that'll please you. But go outside and change that course before there's any mischief done."

"Here's a sixpenny charter-party stamp. I'll see your name written to the  promise across that, hinny, before I tamper with any courses. You're signing because you're afraid of your life; I'm holding on because I'm afraid for mine."

In this manner then the two elderly mariners obtained a bond which confirmed them in an employment which they were very well capable to fill, and Mr. Gedge, during a passage to London River, which ended on the day after Christmas, was able to appreciate the full beauties of a North Sea gale,  complicated with snowstorms, and viewed from the vantage print of an overloaded collier.

Captain Cray thought nothing of it because he had, been used to it all his life, and had not higher ambition than to continue in the service till he died, at a monthly wage of £10.

Captain Cray was a simple minded man. He was not, however, without his share of human curiosity, he very much wanted to learn how Mr. Gedge got into that sack, and who it was who tied it so neatly about his ankles.

But on this point he was never enlightened. To reply to a civil question on the matter, Gedge merely swore at him, and when, some couple of years later, be happened to see Captain Crowther and put the same query to him, that enterprising young man winked and said, "that he had forgotten even the name of Gedge with all completeness."

It was a curious thing. Both Captain Cray and Captain Shaw quite agreed about its curiosity.

____________________

22: The Mine Layer

Journal (Adelaide), 3 April 1915

THE GRIMSBY TWINS' otter trawl was down, scratching up fish from the Dogger-bank below, and John Henry Shepherd, the elder of the twins, was smoking in the wheelhouse and keeping the little steamboat approximately on her course. Arthur Cleethorpes Shepherd, his brother, and the only other hand on deck, was seated, with his back against the main hatch, reading war news from a stale copy of The Grimsby Gazette, to them came the strains of ecclesiastical music from the cabin skylight, skylight, proving that a certain Captain Shepherd was awake and— and was working his way through Messrs. Moody and Sankev's Collection of Hymns.

The Steam Trawler Grimsby Twins' harmonium had a compass of two octaves only; but  Captain Shepherd was a resourceful man, and when his music encroached beyond those narrow limits he whistled the missing notes with his own lips very efficiently. Mixed with the music that came from the skylight there drifted a fine aroma of onions, hinting that tea— with fried cod sounds— was under way, and that presently the watch would be changed.

"Owt fresh i' t' paper, Clee?" called out John Henry.

"Aye; they're asking for more hands for them trawlers they've set on at mine sweeping. I wish the old man would let us go."

"Well, he won't,"  said the elder twin in a husky whisper. "Said only just now, when  I took the wheel from him, that all war was a crime and a mistake, and recommended me when she was easy, to put up a bit of prayer to be delivered from the sin of wanting to chip in. I've a durn good mind― Hey, Clee, what's that packet coming out of the mist ahead there?"

He grabbed the binocular from its box and clapped it to his eyes.

"It's a Grimsby-man.  GY.4696! Why, there's no such number!"

"Looks more to me like a Dutch boat."

"Looks to me like that Lowestoft craft, the Bishop Something."

"Bishop Argles. That's her. You can tell by that fancy vane Old Man Argles snipped on his foretruck. But she's strangely mucked up! Those Lowestoft fellows have the queerest ideas of fishing. What for have they got that big derrick rigged aft?"

It was at this moment the S. T. Grimsby Twins struck the mine. She had missed it with her bows by a good fathom, but the drag of the heavy trawl warp over the quarter made her gait somewhat crab wise; and, with the help of a lifting swell, she dropped down on the infernal machine almost amidships, so that one of its strikers was rammed thoroughly home by a downward blow from her starboard bilge keel. Capt. Shepherd's first intimation of disaster was his being plucked from the harmonium stool by some unseen force and flung violently against the cabin roof.

The yell of the explosion and the crash of smashing steel and iron came to him next, and by the time he had fallen back to the cabin floor the stink of the yellow melinite fumes was making him cough and choke. The companion way was gushing wreckage and sea water, and he reached the deck by a scramble through the skylight. His vessel was in halves. Already the forward half was cruising away drunkenly by itself, with four dazed fishermen hanging on to the windlass; the poop end was sinking visibly; and in the churning water between the two there swirled about the dead and shattered bodies of his twin sons, one of them headless.

Ice was hot compared with the trawler skipper's coolness then. In an instant of time all that he loved in the world and all that he owned in the world was plucked from him. He did not whimper; he did not, after the manner of his kind, bombard heaven and all beneath it with furious curses; instead, he gazed with stolid eyes ait the other trawler looming through the mist, and nodded.

"It's what they said," he muttered, "and what I wouldn't believe― mines sown broadcast over the North Sea. O God, forgive me for not believing before what the, British Government said, and give me life to pay back a bit of what I owe. Amen."

After which prayer he jumped overboard and swam to the Grimsby Twins  boat, which had been blown clear and floated undamaged. Then he clambered into her and set about rescuing those of his men who still floated about on wreckage.

The council of war which decided the fate of some three thousand men and— so it is said— no less than five German ships of war took place in the trawler's jolly-boat  some 20 minutes later.  There were seven men on board of her, including Capt. Shepherd, as survivors of the fishing steamer's complement; and two of them were  wounded― one badly. Among them, also wet and miserable, was Joe, the trawler's cat.

"I suppose most of you think that good old Grimsby's the place we want to see next?" began Capt. Shepherd.

"You pet!" said Olssen, the third hand.

"I'm no' sure," said McCrae, chief engineer, looking hard at his superior officer.

"You're thinking of Jimmy, Mac?" suggested Capt. Shepherd.

"I am, cap. He was ma sister's son."

"And he's now down— or parts of him are— among the cod on the bank below. Olssen, your brother's not here either?"

"Nein."

"Nor your boy, Dick?"

"He was smashed to a pulp, with young Olssen, by the winch falling on them," said old Dick. He clutched at a sob in his throat. "A splendid lad he was, too — the young beggar. And there were your two pups and all, skipper. I saw them go out, too, in the middle of that stinking yellow smoke. We've always been a bit of what you might call a family ship— very comfortable, too, and no trouble ever that meant anything. I'm sorry them cod sounds I was frying for you was wasted, chaps."

Capt. Shepherd nodded to the compliment, and then hit the gunwale a hard blow with his fist to call the meeting to business.

"Look here, men; we've all suffered, and we've got to get busy if we're going to show ourselves better than Joe, and do anything besides mewling. I'll own up I've been a man with a wrong idea. I've lea away by a discourse once given in our Chapel, which said that at bottom the Dutchmen only wanted a bit of argument and some prayer to make them reasonable. That's wrong. What they want is hell, and I'm the man to give it to them. Do you come in on the usual share terms as arranged for this fishing fleet?"

"If we were fitted as a man-of-war," said McCrae cautiously, "I'd be wi' ye on the nod."' He indicated with the wave of a hand the heavily built boat that carried them lumberingly over the fog-covered swells. "This is all I can see beyond the end of ma neb at present. But perhaps you've a scheme, cap?"

"Aye," said Capt. Shepherd, heavily. "I have what you might call a strategy in my head. Man and boy, I've fished the Dogger— with short holidays in the Iceland seas— these 40 years, and I know it, sea bank and sea top, better than most. I know the ways of the cod: I know the thoughts of the men that fish them, and I know the tracks of the shipping. come fog, come fine, as a North Sea fisherman should. I got but one short look at yon spawn of Beelzebub that was laying those mines from Tommy Argles's boat— I  bet some language came out when they cut Tommy's throat, by-the-way— and she was steering north an' by east to half a ticktack. Now do you see the scheme?"

They did not. Capt. Shepherd went on patiently to explain.

"They'll lay one line of mines across the ship track from south to north; and then, when they've covered it. they'll turn and lay another parallel to it, so that a ship which misses one line will be gathered by the next."

McCrae held up a brown hand and spat into it. "That's sound metapheesics. Cap., it's a pleasure to listen to ye. Go on!"

"We'll pull out west from here; we'll i miss the mines in the first line— and, fellers, you can take it from me, He will help us― and we'll wait for Mister Blessed Murder Spreader as he comes for down on his next trip. Then we'll get aboard and attend to his people; and when we've done that I'll tell you what we'll do next. Any objections?"

They looked at one another thoughtfully and conned the matter over. Your ease coast fisherman is always a mightily independent person, and sees to it that his private opinion has full weight; but there was no amendment and the heavy boat was got under way. Capt. Shepherd, wooden-faced and silent, tucked his arm over an oar in the stern notch and steered. As utensils of navigation he had a watch-chain compass, a big silver watch, and his nose; and he held a course through the fog as unfalteringly as a keeper might tread across familiar heather.

Thrice they saw steam trawlers from Hull and Grimsby and Scarborough. Once they were hailed; but they made no attempt to break their voyage or even to give a hint of its purpose. They were all silent except Joe, the cat. Joe, having less control than his betters, spat and swore aloud as he licked the yellow melinite stain from his salty fur.

"We don't want the navy butting in," Capt. Shepherd said as an afterthought. "We'll make this a fisherman's job; and if afterward they say we're a pack of pirates— well, I hope they'll have to own we're efficient pirates. The dead were our dead, and we're going to arrange the funeral ceremony without help or interference. Spell-o at the oars! Two of you other feller take a turn now."

The mine laying trawler crossed their track on its return trip exactly as Capt. Shepherd had calculated; and, though her lookout saw them and commented, the Officer in charge made no attempt to slow down or pick them up. But some such courtesy as that had been anticipated. The boat lay in the steamer's track, stem to bow, and at full pressure on her oars; and under Capt. Shepherd's handling she presently rasped down the trawler's side, Men who spend their lives boarding fish on to the carriers in all varieties of North Sea weather are impossible to beat at that sort of game.

What followed was by no means a massacre. The seven men tumbled over on to the mine-cluttered decks without resistance, certainly, the cat following them. They had two iron belaying pins among them, and quickly picked up other weapons; but, if it had not been for the surprise of their boarding, they would have been driven in quick time over into the sea whence they came. The surprise gave them the first start, however, and their toughness and the wild ferocity of their attack did the rest.

Capt. Shepherd found an axe and wielded it bloodily. They cleared the main deck under a spray of revolver bullets from an officer in the pilot house. Capt. Shepherd went for him, ignoring the revolver, got the axe well home on his right shoulder blade, and cleft him through to the middle. There was no asking for or giving quarter. The invaders cleared the decks of Germans and then went below to the forecastle engine-room, and cabin, and killed there, leaving only two alive. These two were English, and in the stokehold, and they heard hard things from their saviours about Englishmen who, even under duress, work for Germans and do not kill them.

"So back to your kennel, you whipped pups!" said Capt. Shepherd at the end of his discourse on their personal appearance and behaviour. "And keep a full head of steam. We're away to the suth'ard-east'ard on pressing business.  Are you other fellers all sound? Where's Albert Henry?"

"Albert Henry got a bayonet in his stomach, and clapped his arms round the Dutchman that put it there and jumped with him into the ditch."

"And I think Hull Harry died just as we boarded. He must have been worse hurt than we guessed at when the Twins blew up."

"That leaves five," said Capt. Shepherd. "You, Olssen, take the wheel. Your course is sou-'east-'n'by'east. Mac, get below and learn up the coffee mill; and rub the fear o' God into those putty-livers that are firing her. And the rest of you swill down decks. I'm going to worry out how these mines are launched, and I want a clear head for it; so don't any of you fellers disturb me.... Oh, yes, and there's one other thing. One of you hunt up a Dutch ensign— they're bound to have one aboard— and get it bent on to the signal halyards and ready to break out if any of their cruisers overhaul us."

The fishermen obeyed these orders none too promptly. They were all of them more or less cut and scratched and, to start with, they gave one another rough first aid. Then, at Dick's suggestion, they raided galley and larder and pocketed a meal; and then, with food to refer to between whiles, they started to work; and each, according to the North Sea habit, set himself to do two men's toil.

Meantime Capt. Shepherd, who had never in his life seen a floating sea mine, either on a ship's deck or elsewhere, set to work to puzzle out from the mass of boiler iron and steel cable before him how he could sink, burn, and destroy his hated enemies without blowing up the S. T. Bishop Argles in the process. After he had done a given amount of execution he did not in the least mind what became of her or, for that matter, of himself or his crew. He was a man now entirely reckless, and, if he gave a thought for his mates, concluded they were the same. He had received irreparable injury; the bigger injury he could do to any German in return the happier he should die— that was all.

The ravelling out of the plan for a fleet of floating sea mines is no job for an amateur; but Capt. Shepherd was not the ordinary layman in this matter. He was a North Sea fisherman, which is as much as to say that he was a mechanic, sailorman, carpenter, and rule-of-thumb scientist combined; and he picked up intelligently the details of mooring tackle, riding cables, depth adjustments, striker adjustment, and all the rest of the intricate apparatus.

He reasoned it out piecemeal from A to Z and back again tediously, from Z to A, slurring over nothing, concentrating thoughtfully on every doubtful  point until it became entirely clear. Now and again Joe bumped a sympathetic nose against leg, and he always pulled the cat's tail gratefully in recognition of the attention.

The North Sea, too, was kind to them in being comfortably covered with fog. In fine weather Capt. Shepherd was no better navigator than any other man who has grasped the truths of Norie's Epitome; but in a thick grey blanket of fog. even among the fisher skippers, there were few to equal him. With a sluggish compass on a pole, a handful of tallow smeared into the bottom of the lead, and a nose to sniff the wet air, he could feel his way from any part of the North Sea to any other part with unfaltering accuracy.

At intervals a hand would living the lead to him and he would examine and sniff at the arming.

"Huh! Sand and small shells, and one of them brown creepy things, and that crisp brass-wire smell! We are just off the south-east corner of that hole where I carried away a trawl beam in Nought-one. Tell Olssen to give her half a point more starboard, and take another cast of the lead in twenty minutes; and if there's black sand with these same shells you needn't bother me for another hour. I guess that half point will just overtake the drift."

So, on across his chosen line in the German coast, Capt. Shepherd did not trouble with charts. He carried a map of the contours of the North Sea floor in his head and had resourcefulness enough for all other requirements. Once he was tailed by a hurrying German destroyer, but had backed away into the fog with a ported helm by the time she had come to look for him, and so escaped enquiries. The incident gave him an idea, however. He went to the engine room skylight and hailed down to one of his impressed stokers— "Hey, you putty-feller there, what did the Dutchmen do with your fishing gear when they took you?"

"Slung it overboard, sir."

"All of it?"

"All of it except the warps."

"Did they jettison the otter boards?"

"Yes, sir."

"But didn't Capt. Argles carry a spare?"

The two stokers consulted. "Yes, sir; there's a spare otter board used as a floor for one of the fish boxes."

"Good!" said the captain, and he proceeded to get it on deck. "We'll call the depth here 26 fathoms, and we'll shackle one of these devil's machines on to the otter board, with enough drift of painter to keep it just under the surface when we're towing it out a quarter of a mile abeam of us. How's that. fellers? Take that mine there, marked 32, that's next under the derrick; and handle it like eggs or it'll go off hot. And that'll be the end of our tale, and our job'll he left undone. By crumbs, fellers, be careful! Keep it in your heads that we've a stack of these Dutchmen to kill before our own time comes."

Success came that very night! From out the mist and the darkness a German light cruiser came pelting up at a five-and-twenty-knot gait, with guns nosing round for prey and searchlights blazing. She sighted the trawler and hove-to, with engines working full speed astern, athwart the Bishop Argles' trawl warp, bawling questions. "Ja! Ja!" shouted Capt. Shepherd in polite response.  "No comprennay!'

Meantime Mr. McCrae had set the deck winch going, and hove in on the trawl warp until he drew the mine and its murderous striker into place. It hit the cruiser squarely beneath her bilge, amidships. It blew her half in two: it exploded some if not all of her boilers, and these— or the mine— exploded her magazines.

Heaven yelled to the din of the blasts. The fog lit to a flaming yellow. The Bishop Argles rocked and tossed like a cork in a flooded gutter with the shock; and when the reeking-smoke of the melinite blew to him, Joe, the cat, spat and swore with excited frenzy.

"Good puss, then!"' said Capt. Shepherd. "Hates a Dutchman, doesn't he? Get the slack of that trawl warp hove in, Mac, will you? And then we'll stem on again. Back to your course, Olssen."

"AYE," said Dick, the old fisherman. "Here's a sandwich for you, skipper. You missed your dinner, so you'll need it. The meat's some kind of liver sausage with black things in it; but I fried it with onions, so you'll never notice the taste. And here's a can of hard-boiled tea."

"Thank you, Dick. Now go and take a spell at the wheel and send Olssen to me, aft here. And, Dick, if he doesn't seem to want to come, or if he shows awkward in any way, throw him over into the pond."

"Aye!" said the burly old man. "I was expecting that, too. skipper. Olssen's a Dutchman of sorts himself."

Olssen came, and was sharply bidden to stand ten feet from his interviewer. "And now, my man," said Capt. Shepherd, "as the only feller who speaks German on this packet, why the whiskers didn't you palaver that brass-edged Dutchman when I told you to? Frightened?"

"Nein; it was nod dot exactly."

"Kind o' forgot they murdered your brother a few hours ago, did you?"

"Mein Gott, nein!"

"Look here, my feller, what countryman are you? An Olssen should be some sort of a Sou'wegian."

"Deutschland uber alles!" murmured Olssen softly, and rushed. Capt. Shepherd stepped lightly aside, but left one heavy carpet-slippered foot behind him. Olssen struck wildly, hit nothing, tripped over the foot, and tumbled over the rail into the North Sea— where he remained.

"They're everywhere, those Dutchmen!" commented Capt. Shepherd patiently and cut himself some tobacco. "They'll do with a lot of weeding out. I must weed."

IT WAS dark again when the Bishop Argles entered the Heligoland Bight, and she was steaming without lights. Furthermore, her engine room and cabin skylights were covered with tarpaulins, and the binnacle lights were muffled, so that not the smallest ray could escape seaward. The clothing of her people were dried by now, and Capt. Shepherd's carpet slippers showed their colours in full brilliancy. A more desperate venture than the one they were set on it would be impossible to find, but none of the bipeds showed emotion. Fishermen are not a demonstrative lot at any time, and these few survivors of what was once a happy family ship were perhaps dulled with grief; anyway, they had decided that it was worth dying to encompass a certain ambition against the enemy, and there was an end of it.

So they ate, drank, kept watches, and behaved as normal fishermen should. Joe, the cat, was the exception. Joe complained personally and individually to each of the crew in turn; except, of course, the two pariahs in the stokehole—and had his neck tickled or his tail pulled in good tempered toleration. Everybody liked Joe, but nobody was going to be worried too much about his obvious forebodings. He went to McCrae last of all as that excellent person came up to cool off at the tiddley door. Mr. McCrae was wiping grease from his hands and face with a wad of cotton waste and thriftily transferring it to his boots.

"Fey!" he said to Dick, who had been trying to tempt the cat with a bone. "Fey, that's what ails the puir beastie. "I thought second sight of that kind was confined to humans. Here's a proof to the contrary. It would be a vera interesting topic to write an article on for The E'nb'ro' Review if ever we get hame again, which we shalln't. Dick, there was an eye in that egg you fried for ma breakfast this morning. I'll trouble you to pull the meaty bits out in the future. They're ower rich for ma stomach."

A new danger cropped up as they neared their goal. The British Navy, both on the water and below it— though mostly below it— was keeping "watch and ward" on the German ships that were cooped up inside: but Capt. Shepherd instinctively felt that the British Navy would not want him as an ally on any terms whatever.

He felt the point of view to be narrow-minded in the highest degree, but saw no means just then of changing it. He had no time at the moment to stop and argue an ethic point with the British Navy. So he did his best to avoid conversation with any of its units. Twice snaky destroyers sighted him and turned to speak, but the fog was still his friend, and his old tactics of going astern on a swerving helm carried him out of reach. He chuckled as one of them let off a round stream of gunfire at some object which they mistook for the trawler among the sea mists; but the submarines worried Capt. Shepherd most.

A hand reported— "There's a drainpipe cruising alongside us to starboard, skipper."

Well, there it was—an insignificant periscope, with a trifling wake of white water behind it and nothing to show whether it was British or German— or, for that matter, Venezuelan. There would be a hull down below, too, twice as big as the Bishop Argles', and full of men only too keen to interfere with his righteous work. Capt. Shepherd at last got seriously annoyed. His red face, inside its frame of whiskers, deepened to a fine plum colour.

"Hard aport with that helm!" he ordered. "Hard over with it, now— yes, and steady on that. I'll make that chap dive or I'll scrape his deck plates." And dive is what the submarine promptly did. Her periscope slid under water as though it had been pulled down by a string; and the little steamboat lumbered over her without touching, and drove ahead down the North Sea without scathe from the torpedoes.

Perhaps they thought she was an ordinary blundering trawler, and it was an even chance whether she was their friend or an enemy's ship. Capt. Shepherd could not tell her captain's thoughts. He did not even know whether the submarine was a British or a German craft; but they saw her no more. Perhaps, again, when once more she get her eye above water and could see, he Bishop Argles had vanished in the fog. There is a large element of chance in modern sea-warfare.

Anyway, Capt. Shepherd and his fellow fishermen were satisfied. They fully decided that none of them liked submarines. It was to one of these subaqueous craft, however— and the probabilities point to its being German— that they owed their pilotage through the enemy's most dangerous defences.

A periscope appeared out of he gloom on their starboard hand and converged into their course ahead.

"Follow that feller!" said Capt. Shepherd to Dick, who was in the wheelhouse, and applied himself to a study of the seascape through his night glasses.

"Appears if he's trolling for mackerel," observed Dick, as presently the periscope swerved off on a new course.

"Follow every turn he makes, to a fathom," said Capt. Shepherd. "We're going through a hedge of mince just now end I shouldn't like to spoil any of them; so, as he's got the chart of how they're laid and we haven't, we'll just keep narrowly in his wake. But, as there may be other Dutchmen wanting to use this same gap in the hedge after us, I reckon we'll just put a bramble or two in it that may scratch them. Mac!"

"Yes. cap."

"Don't bawl so loud, Mac. That drainpipe affair ahead there may have ears as well as an eye, for all we know. Just get aft and dump in them boilers numbered 32 and 37 over the counter as quick as you like. The moorings are ready shackled on at the right depth; so there's nothing to delay you."

"Right, cap!" said the engineer; and, with the help of a couple of hands, he set about his work. He spat on each mine for luck as they lowered it over the stern.

"Amazing queer dance this chap is taking us!" said Dick, with his eyes on the faint phosphorescence of the periscope's wake. He sawed hard at the wheel, with a busy clatter of cogs.

"There you are again. Can you take her through this dance backward again, d'ye think, skipper?"

"No, Dick. For one reason. Mac's sealing up the hole behind us. For another, we're— we're going into harbour, Dick. We shall see your boy and my two inside an hour from now. D'ye mind?"

"That's all right, skipper. You and I have been good shipmates for a long time now, and we never differed on anything that mattered. We shan't differ on this, anyway. I'm sorry I cooked so badly for you sometimes— that's all."

"Only one person I'm real sorry about is poor old Joe. He's no special quarrel against these Dutchmen, and he knows what's coming as well as any Christian, and hates it fit to burst himself. I did think of heading him up in a cask with a couple of pounds of meat, and letting him adrift to get a chance."

"Now let me think!" He conned over in his head the bearings of the zigzag course, and mentally reckoned the length of each leg.

"We shall be just over the 25-fathom patch, and the nor'-east point of Heligoland will be bearing about due west —or; say, west-'n'by-north. Huh?" Capt. Shepherd took a cast of the sea himself to make sure, and he smiled with professional appreciation of his own skill when the depth and the matter brought up by the arming of the tallow proved the accuracy of his mental reckoning.

"You may send her along―" he began, when the deep boom of a big siren close at hand drowned the words. It was answered by another, higher in note, the trawler's other side, and two rockets sped up into the fog from two more ships ahead. He put his lips to Dick's hairy ear, and bawled:—

"We're right in among the fleet of them; and if we don't look quick we shalln't get our work done. Gimme that wheel; and do you go aft and tell Mac to get those mines overboard and into the water as quick as he can whip them off the deck."

Somehow, and I hardly think it could have been from the submarine that unconsciously piloted them through the mine field, the Germans had got wind of an enemy's presence: and an alarm spread round the invisible fleet with furious noise and bustle. Sirens, with long blasts and short, boomed messages; searchlights made the fog iridescent, but did not penetrate it; and there was all the indescribable turmoil and alarm of a great war fleet caught at anchor by an invisible destroyer that had penetrated their outer and inner defences.

The fishermen wore the only people who look it coolly. They had their work to do, and did it as though it was their daily routine. Mine after mine— German-made— was lifted from their decks and dropped into the still water astern; and Capt. Shepherd, in the steering pulpit, leaned over the spokes of the wheel and wove his way accurately among the noises. Launches and picket boats at high speed began to pant by them unseen through the fog. One of these presently fouled one of the drifting mines and blew it up with an appalling explosion. And then some big ship got an attack of the nerves and with every light gun she could, bring to bear fired into what necessarily must have been one of her own boats.

"They're beginning to pay," said Capt. Shepherd at the wheel. "O, Lord, give me time to send in more of the bill, and make them pay sit least half of what's owing!" He glanced over his shoulder at the after deck.

"Mac!"

"Yes, Cap."

"When you get to the last two of them boilers, hang one over each quarter, and tell me."

"Right!" said McCrae, and waved a hand.

Other spurts of firing burst out; and then there was a crash as some launch's boiler exploded to a shell, and the shrill scream of hurt men.

"The Dutchmen will call this a raid by the whole British Fleet in to-morrow's papers," commented Capt. Shepherd. "They'll never own up they've been shooting into their own ships. By whiskers I shall have to look lively now! All this firing's bringing on a breeze that'll clear the fog. Yes, Mac?"

"They're all over in the ditch, cap, bar those last two. I've slung one over each quarter, as you said."

"Thank you, Mac!" The wheel went over, and the Bishop Argles headed for the line of invisible ships where the noise of defence was loudest. They sighted her when she was a hundred yards away, and saluted her with a very tornado of fire. Her funnel was shorn off close to the fiddley top by a shell from a great gun, which did not explode there, but acted against a friend in the farther line. Rifle bullets and small shells from quick firers swept over her like a hailstorm, and a score of heavier missiles skated along her rusty iron sides; but she was end-on, and so, as a target, she was small— and there is no doubt that the gunners were scared and nervous. The German at the range and the German in action are two very different marksmen. Normally, at ten knots, that hundred yards should have taken about one-third of a minute; but some of the shells had penetrated beneath wind and water, and the trawler was sinking fast and dropping pace every second.

"Go on, old girl!" Capt. Shepherd urged.  ''Hey, now! Just another score of fathoms and that's all I ask from you. Joe, you brute, get off my shoulder, or don't claw!"

The little steamer, with her engines by some marvel untouched, and with her burden of mines by a greater marvel unexploded, drew up to the great battle cruiser with still some freeboard stowing; and then Capt. Shepherd jammed his helm hard aport. Her bow almost scraped along the warship's flank, and her stern swung in. There was a lull in the big guns' fire, as they could not be depressed sufficiently to get their sights on her, and the rifleman were firing from the hip and hurting their friends across the way.

Then the starboard quarter of the Bishop Argles swung in against the big cruiser's side, just below the forward barbettes, and the mine was cracked between them— and a volcano burst forth that rivalled Etna! The ammunition blew up on board of her, and then a magazine. Boilers caught the infection, and then more gun ammunition and more magazines.

The huge ship blew to pieces piecemeal and sank compartment by compartment; but she went to the sea floor none the less efficiently. And she was one of the biggest cruisers on the world's navy list. As for the trawler, she was spread as mere scum on the troubled waters of the Heligoland Bight.

NOW this ought to be the end of the tale; but history compels me to record that Capt. Shepherd still resides in England. Odd to relate, he seems well off. In his house is an enlarged photograph of two young men curiously alike and in that wooden attitude affected by fishermen when they face the camera. It is framed simply in oak; but the frame is notable. It is studded thickly with curious bronze spikes, which the intelligent observer will recognise, after thought, as once having been carried on the helmets of German infantrymen at the rate of one spike to one man. There are 76 spikes round the frame. A queer-looking cat, with one ear missing and a foreleg that has been broken and very badly mended, limps round the garden in Capt. Shepherd's company. If you shake anything yellow at the cat he spits at you. How these latter things came to pass cannot be related here. They belong to another tale.

Underneath the portraits is a newspaper clipping, also framed, which runs thus:

"New York.—Berlin report by wireless that a British destroyer flotilla made a determined raid on a German fleet last night off Heligoland. The British loss was thirteen destroyers sunk and three captured. Their loss in men was very heavy. The Germans had one unimportant cruiser slightly damaged."

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23: The Colonel

Sydney Mail (NSW) 14 July 1937

COLONEL H. W. BENTHAM did extraordinarily well in the war, as we all know, and if he'd been content to drop his rank and step down to a captaincy the Army would have been glad enough to keep him on as a regular. But when a man has been put into command of a roughish regiment at the age of twenty-three, and during his year of command licked, cursed, chaffed, worked, and humbugged it into a line smartness, he does not like being put back to the small potatoes of a company command. At least, that is the way Bentham looked at it.

So he told the War Office to go to the devil, took what gratuity he could grab, and cleared out. As he has pointed out a good many times, the War Office has followed out his instructions to the letter. The gratuity went rather glitteringly, partly on that section of the French Riviera which isn't French, and partly in trying to produce a higher-speed car than any speed car then on the market. The car, however, though assembled with the greatest thought and care, always disassembled itself during trials.

Thereafter Bentham went down the hill. His apologists always claimed that he had no real knowledge of finance, and possibly that is correct. But he resented Fate. And anyway he was reckless. It was by sheer recklessness that he had run a tough regiment and won the two bars to his D.S.O., and all the rest of it. Twice, through the pleading of clever counsel, a sympathetic Bench left him at large, with stiffish comments on his commercial behaviour. But the third time he was awarded three months of gaol and was told flatly he might consider himself lucky in not getting three years.

Sad Downfall of a D.S.O. Colonel, the papers labelled the case for one day, and then very sportingly dropped it.

SO H. W. Bentham started off on the job of making a living as a civilian with a goodish handicap tagged on to him. It was with a full knowledge of this record that the American with the taste for archaeology offered him employment. The American was one of those curious mixtures that are fairly common in the United States. He was a don— Professor, they called him— of an eminent university; he had made a huge fortune as a mining engineer and an owner of mines; and he had morals (as regards the collecting of certain brands of antiquities) that would have been a blot on the character of the late Charles Peace.

'I can't show my nose in France, Colonel,' said the Professor, 'much less in Algeria. The French keep such a narrow look-out for me in these North African colonies that I understand they tweak the whiskers of every man who lands at any of the ports there with the least trace of nasal accent, on the chance he may be me in disguise. Also, if you do get in the soup and let on you're working on my behalf, they'll heat up the fires beneath you unto seventy times seven. Frankly, if you do get caught even prospecting, I should say it's even odds on your getting shot or having a free passage to Cayenne. And if you found the stuff, and were apprehended with the goods on you, I should say horrors would occur which even the Great War was a stranger to.'

'But,' said Bentham. 'if the French archaeology chaps are so keen on these Roman relics—'

'Don't blaspheme, my good Colonel. Carthaginian, I keep on telling you.'

'Well, same thing. Why don't they go-look-see and lift the goods themselves? You found 'em.'

'To be exact, I didn't. A Kabyle in my employ did. But when he was in the act and article of handing them over, up sailed my opposite number in a certain French university. There were no half-measures about that lad. He ran the Kabyle in and ran me out— out of Algeria. I mean.'

'And proceeded to twist the Kabyle's tail till he told of the cache?'

'How much they twisted his tail I don't know. Colonel, but the man died of it. He didn't tell, all the same. They're a strenuous crowd, the French in Algeria, at times.'

'Stout fellow, the aboriginal. Your French don seems to have roughish hands. Well, it's as well to be posted on these points beforehand, and then you'll know to peel off your gloves when you make contact. I understand your proposal is on the no-cure-no-pay lines. You'll cash up for all Roman— I mean Carthaginian― jampots I managed to bring out and offer f.o.b. London, but there's no money reward for good intentions.'

'That about sums it up,' the Professor admitted, 'except that I'm prepared to grub-stake you.'

THE landing of Colonel H. W. Bentham on the quay at Algiers was not as inconspicuous as he would have liked. The usual crowd of hotel touts clamoured for his patronage, and then of a sudden seemed to discover that he was smitten with smallpox. They shrank away from him and stared. Into the vacuum so made a small fat man pushed his way wheezily.

'Is monsieur joining the Foreign Legion?' the fat man panted. Bentham stared. Then he made a very naturally British reply of 'What the hell's that got to do with you, Tum-tum?' and proceeded to move along his way. The agent trotted alongside.

'Monsieur's dossier from the English police has preceded him. We have instructions to keep a very careful eye on Monsieur le Colonel unless he joins the Legion at once. I trust that monsieur will understand the situation and not allow himself to slip into trouble.'

Colonel Bentham got into a taxi-auto and gave a direction. 'I always felt.' he told himself, 'that I should hate to be a Piccadilly Circus electric sky sign.'

THE Professor had asked Bentham if he spoke French, and had been told, 'The worst ever.' But it happened to be French as she is spoke by the British Army, and it got there. The only trouble was that no Frenchman would ever take it for anything but what it was. It was a tongue, in fact, that put the lettering on the Piccadilly sky-sign into the plainest of plain English.

Bentham had been rather sceptical at the Professor's description, in London, of the hardness of the job. Here in Algiers, after thinking over it for three days and either seeing the fat agent at every corner or hearing his wheezing, he considered the Professor had moderated the difficulties by about ninety-nine per cent. But he had not the smallest intention of throwing in his hand, for all that. One does not become a colonel at twenty-three and know how to knock a collier regiment into shape without having a knack of not shying at the impossible.

Then as a consequence of thought he made preparations, and got papers signed, abundance of papers; and exuded mystery; and boarded a Transatlantique boat just as she was leaving for Marseilles. His baggage remained on her. He himself slipped down a rope on her farther side and had a coolish swim halfway across Algiers harbour. He thought the fishing felucca he stowed away on was bound for Malta, but was kicked ashore on to the Balearic Island of Formentara, of all places. Thence he journeyed via Palma in Majorca, and Barcelona, to some fishing port in Sicily that I have lost the name of. There he applied himself to the art of tunny-catching for three months, and then, covered with scales, sea-tan, and tattered dungaree, carried a garlic smell and some sort of a Sicilian patois into an Algerian port which I will call, if you please, Píxie, because I do not want you to know exactly where it is. Friends of mine live there with— how shall I put it?— archaeological tastes. We can leave it at that. Bentham had heard, it seems, that for a man who was sick of the tunny fishery, with its extreme uncertainty, there was a steady income to be made by navvying in the phosphate mines. As it happened, news of him got to a mine manager who was down in Píxie doing a bit of recruiting. The man sent for Bentham, sized him up as an uneducated Sicilian peasant, and signed him on at about twenty-five per cent. below the normal scale of wages and shipped him off inland to the job.

Bentham felt luck at last was indeed coming round his way, and spent another steady three months quarrying phosphate rock. Then he staged a very creditable liaison with a Kabyle woman, and left ostensibly to enjoy a quiet married life in the role of washerwoman's husband. The mine manager damned the eyes of local beauty, and wrote off his Sicilian workman as Love's Labour Lost.

NOW, I do not know where the Carthaginian city that there was all this fuss about is situated, and if I did I wouldn't tell. 'The Professor' is by way of being a friend of mine; we meet once a year at a London club; and there are more Punic spoons, and curling-tongs, and all the rest of it still to lift. Algeria is packed with the ruins of Roman cities  Timgad, Lambessa, Talaghana, and all the rest of them— and diggers tell one that most of them are three cities deep. The Carthaginian place has one of those well known Roman superstructures, but as the Carthaginians built for the most part in adobe, and the Romans fancied stone, Europe as usual triumphs over Africa. At our Professor's pitch the French, who are keen as needles on this sort of thing, had evidently smelt museum specimens, and had obligingly done some pretty exhaustive excavations. But the French had missed the plums, and the Kabyle I have mentioned had beaten them at their own game.

THE Kabyle woman farmed a few leggy sheep and grew assorted vegetables. She as a point of fact was the widow of the man who had been in the Professor's employ before, and who— stout fellow— wouldn't tell. She was a lady of forty, which is well on in extreme old age in Kabyle circles. She, according to her table-talk with neighbours, had visions of vast prosperity from a phosphate deposit she knew about, and to that end had hired an expert from an adjacent mine to do a prospector's work on it. The creature couldn't speak Berber, Kabyle, French, or any known language; said he was a Sicilian, but was extremely handy at making himself understood by signs; and in the meanwhile was rapidly picking up smatterings of some of Allah's own tongues. Also he was a worker. Already she was shipping down bags of phosphate to Píxie for a buyer in New York, who was giving extremely good prices for this fresh brand.

THE report of Colonel H. W. Bentham to his principal in that hub of the intellectual universe, Boston, was not without its humours.

'You have grub-staked me for nineteen months, sir,' said Bentham, 'and if I'd been sharp I'd have stuck you for so much a week and pocketed the unspent balance. A fifty-pound note has covered you there; I've been practically self-supporting. I've had a hell of a time of it in Algeria, and enjoyed myself thoroughly, thank you. The teacups and hardware I've smuggled out in the fertiliser bags look to me worth about one ten-thousandth of what you've paid me for them, though they're Carthaginian all right, and your offer of the curatorship suits me down to the ground. That's most decent of you. You know my record. I've played the fool pretty solidly, but I still stick to it the police at home have been too hard on me. But then I suppose the shirkers in England will always be jealous of the lads that went out and did their bit in the war, and will always give them a toss when they can manage it. You won't mind my mentioning it again, sir, I'm sure, but I hope you'll do something for Zuleika. The whole thing's hinged on her. And with another dozen sheep at sixty francs apiece she'd be a rich woman in that village. I'll stand half. Oh, and I forgot, she wants a sewing machine. She couldn't use it, of course. But it gives an air to the shack.'

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24: A Baptism Of Fire

Capricornian (Qld.), 2 July 1898

SOMETHING said 'whisp' past my cap, and then there was a crisp 'bungge' from behind. I raised my eyes, with mouth gaping and sandwich in mid-air. A Chinese officer with heavy felt-soled boots was raising a blued large-bore revolver for a second shot at me, and behind him was the first rank of his men — and interminably long it seemed— just topping the rise. I did not stop to think. Up till then I had been sprawling full length upon the sun-baked grass ; but somehow, before I knew it, instinct had jerked me on to my feet, and I was running like a frightened dog down the elope.

Of course I had no business there at all. The duty of a sous-officer of commissariat is to keep snugly to the rear with his own men, and to preserve his hide as far as possible intact. But I was new to active service then, and wishful to see the glorious drama of war in red real life. And so, as no special duty pinned me in camp, I had left my own proper comrades, and come afield to watch the day's action. It had seemed to me at the time that I could do this in entire safety. Our troops were ordered out to take and destroy a village which lay in the valley by the riverside, and their operations would be confined to the lower ground. The heights above would be entirely untroubled, unoccupied. And so I had gained there, after walking five miles over gentle slopes of short scrub grass, and then had lain me down on the ridge, and watched the skirmishing, the attack, and the capture through a pair of glasses. from the distance it had all seemed very tame. There were little puffs of gray smoke, men fell, others came on at the run, zigzagged in and out in entire disorder, made their weapons and accoutrements glitter in the sun, and then disappeared under cover of the mud und bamboo village.

More smoke arose in puffs from the lanes between the houses. And then a stream of Black-Flag Chinese began to pour out at the run. Some of them pitched forward and lay still, and the others opened out to pass these by, and others limped and lagged behind the general pace; and a quiet irregular crackle from the village, like the burning of brushwood, told me what was causing these things.

But I cannot say that I was much impressed with any of it. Distance dwarfed the whole into unreality. In fact, though the scene reminded one of a piece in a theatre, I have seen stage plays which moved me far more deeply. But when the Black Flags were out of range and the firing ceased, the valley dropped into dead quietude and there was nothing more to see. I yawned over it for another half-hour, and then walked a dozen yards down the slope, smoked a couple of cigarettes, and begin my dejeuner.

The regiment of Black Flags which came down upon me must have started climbing the hill face the very minute I quitted the ridge. Instinct, as I say, jerked me to my feet, and instinct must have given me a prodigious start, for when first my wits came to me, I found myself running like a frightened dog. The officer gave me a second shot which cut a gutter between my feet, and then his men opened out with Remington rifles. I don't know how many fired. It seemed as if ten million bullets whisped past me, and I had a notion I was hit in twenty places. But nothing clogged my legs, and although my heart was trying hard to jump clear of its moorings, I ran on at freshened pace. There wasn't a more terrified man in Asia that minute.

The shots came dropping after me; shots and the cries of chase in barbarous Chinese; and the world swam in front. Terror undiluted made me a running automaton. But by degrees a vague wonder stole upon me as to whether other men felt like this when they were under fire, and from that my mind grew into other things. It was easy to answer that whatever they felt, soldiers did not always run away, and then I remembered plainly that cowardice before the face of the enemy was punished by the award of death.

Beyond a doubt the most cowardly French man in the East that moment was myself. I did not attempt to controvert this fact; I ran on, cringing from every bullet that rustled past me or spurted up the ground beside my leaping feet; but I sought to find excuses for my conduct. For good behaviour they had raised me from the ranks to be a non-commissioned officer; to lead and be an example to the rest of the rank and file when a pinch came; and here I was leading the wrong way and setting the worst of all examples.

Promptly the excuse came. 'But no; I should not run if there were others of the French with me; shame would forbid, even though the bullets were flying in ten times thicker hailstorm.'

I could imagine that with only six friends I should have laughed and jested at the skirmish, and stood my ground till I was planted on it for good. Bull the present case was different— far different. There was no friendly soul in sight; none to watch me if I turned, and say to France that I had halted and died fighting like a wolf in centre of the pack. There was no onlooker save God and the Chinese, and I told myself that I could neither do good for my army nor gain a speck of glory by dying.

Dying? Yes, but when should I die if once they got me in their clutches? Sooner or later, certainly; but would it be at once, quick and sudden? There had been handed about tales in our lines of captives being made to linger for hours, yes, days, through the most hellish tortures which fiends could conceive, before the poor wretches got their 'coup de grace.'

The idea plunged me into a fresh access of terror. How long I ran on in this second blinded state I cannot tell, but a sharp sting of pain set my wits once more a-going. It felt like the sear of hot metal burning and frying, and the hurt came somewhere from the round of the left shoulder. Instantly my mood woke again. For the first time there grew upon me a vague resentment against the crew who were yelping and firing in chase; and as I scurried on, as the ill-aimed bullets threw their rushing halo of sound around my head and limbs, this increased to a wild poisonous hate.

The change of sentiment cooled me down prodigiously. I no longer fled vaguely away from the firing like a scared animal. I looked ahead of me; reasoned out the lay of the country; and selected an objective. I commenced also to steal glances over my shoulder, and noted that the Chinese were strangling out into a scattered queue, and that half the regiment were in sight and watching the chase. Most of those behind could not molest me, because their own fellows were in the line of fire, and to this probably I owed my immunity, because those who did load and let off their rifles were blown with the pursuit, and this made their aiming ragged.

I reasoned these matters calmly and collectedly, still running; but resentment was growing upon me till it was producing something near akin to mania. Once I half-stopped and spat a curse at them and shook an impotent fist, but a cluster of the brutes stopped and sent a volley at me from the knee, and I swung out and ran again with an ear lobe gone.

Then for the first time I remembered my revolver. With bungling fingers I upholstered if, and, turning, fired six rapid shots. One man clapped hands to his face, screamed shrilly like a child, and pitched to the earth, his pigtail swinging up the air as though it had been a black whiplash. I had it in me to have leaped on that man had I been near him, and crushed the remaining life cut of him with bare hands, and then have kicked and offered insults to his dead body. I was no longer a French gentleman then. I was a savage beast, lustful to tear my enemies' throats.

I turned again and fled on, the breath coming in thick sobbing pants. A whole peloton of vengeful shots were exchanged for that puny fusillade, but none of them found a billet in me, and I laughed aloud in triumph. Whatever happened now I hid killed my own weight of enemy.

But, as I say, I wanted desperately to do more, and now that the paralysis of terror and excitement had washed away, my mind was beginning to work with craft and cunning. Ahead of me, and running athwart my course, was a muddy wallow they called the road, and which our troops had passed along barely three hours before to the capture of the village. To the left were the French lines and safety. In front, and a ball's throw beyond the road, was the yellow turbid stream of the river.

It was impossible to reach the camp even had I wished if. The Black Flags had anticipated the move and had detailed off a party to outflank me in that direction. By turning off to the right I might very well bring down the enemy upon our expeditionary force on their march back from the village. They might be prepared to receive them, and again they might not, and I would have died ten times sooner than any move of mine for my own safety should bring disaster on my comrades. Our branch of the service gets sneered at enough as it is.

So I raced on for the road and passed it, and then with heavy mud-clogged feet laboured down to the river. The shots came fast and thick now, and two more bullets galled me, but I waded through the shallows without further hurt and gained the deep tawny river beyond.

A sampan was moored a hundred yards out, and a little down-stream. I made for it with long, bursting dives. There were half-a-dozen men on board, jumping, gesticulating, and crying warnings; and once when I came up from an underwater swim, one of them let fly a matchlock at me. I saw him blow the smoking fuse and fire. It was loaded with bird-shot, but I was too close for the charge to scatter, and so it all missed me. Another dive and I was upon them, and they received me with knife-stabs— and— how the fight turned next I could not tell you.

But of a sudden, with a blink and a tap and a downward blow, I came by my wits again, and found that I was on board the sampan with a curved Chinese sword in my hand; and one man lay dead and bleeding at my feet, and another was dead and floating face downwards with the current astern. And the rest were swimming to the shore, and twenty Black Flags were firing over their heads as  fast as they could slip cartridges beneath the breech blocks. My pistol was gone, and I could do no more on the offensive. The wish for fight had left me― the lust for life alone remained. I cut the painter and lay on the sampan's bottom while she drifted down with the current into our own lines.

And yet my officers were pleased to call me brave, and the General gave me the war medal. I tried to refuse it, but they laughed at me. A vedette (it seemed) had watched me through a glass from the moment of the that shot being fired, and they said no man could have behaved more pluckily. Myself I cannot understand this; and when I wear the medal and look upon it, I blush when I remember. Yet the other medals which are beside it make me proud. But they are for other things.

_________________

25: The Holder of the Spoil

Western Australian Goldfields Courier 27 March 1897

IT IS HARD that I should speak evil now of the captain of the scow Plantation Brothers, seeing that he also died at the hands of these ruthless pirates, valiantly fighting, and has relatives in England to-day who treasure his memory: but, beyond question, he was a nervous man. We were three days down the James River from Jamestown; we had around us the broad waters and keen brine-scent of Chesapeake Bay; our hearts were yearning for that unknown England which lay far out across the sea; and yet at nightfall this captain took sail off his ship, and brought her to an anchor a bare mile inside Cape Henry.

There were but eight other passengers on the scow, and those had gone below to sup. Mary and I stood alone on the poop beneath the great mid lantern, and watched the sun creep to rest behind the untouched forests. We spoke but little. Our thoughts mingled in that perfect way which can only come but once in life's span to any man or maiden. And although we had no foreboding of the awful thing which was so swiftly to befall, I fancy our thoughts were a little sad.

Mary was leaving her father, whose term of governorship over the colony would not be up for two more years; I was quitting Virginia, which was my motherland; and although marvellous England and a delicious married life were waiting for us at the other terminal of our voyage, still we could not tear ourselves away from these other places without a passing regret. And so for long we stayed there leaning over the carved-rail, with fingers linked And eyes dreamily watching the sun as it crept to rest behind the rolling line of the trees.

We watched on in that sweet companionable silence till the last tinge of red had faded from the waters of the bay. A flight of canvas-back duck whirred past us in the gloom. A slim fogbank grew up amongst the stems of the forest trees, and a grey mist drifted up from the wavelets.

The captain came to us from the lower deck, a thin, anxious man with earrings and weak, red eyes.

"If Miss Codrington will take my advice," said he with a knuckle at his cap, ''she will go below and seek her chamber. There are calentures in these night mists from the swamps."

And Mary thanked him, and with a fond good-night to me took her departure. She paused at the head of the companion-way and kissed her hand, and then, with a pretty bow to the sailor, stepped quickly down the ladder. My God, I can see every movement, and hear every utterance of that farewell even now to-day, as fresh as on the dreadful night when it was made! It was the last time that Thou, in Thine infinite knowledge of what is best, didst let me see my darling here on earth. For when the pirates boarded the Plantation Brothers I was put out of the combat by one of the very first blows that was struck, and when I came to my wits again she had gone from me for ever, and there was only vengeance to be thought about.

But that vengeance! My appetite is whet for it even now.

That night came away thick and chill, with wet and a moan of wind. The sails of the scow let fall a constant patter of raindrops on to the deck planks; her rigging tautened till it stood like metal rods, which hummed to each spasm of the breeze; and the three great lanterns on the poop gleamed mistily through a thin grey sea fog.

We were not to weigh again till daylight, and the captain wishful to spare his crew in view of the heavy ocean voyage which was to come, had bidden all hands to take their watch below, save only for an anchor guard of one man. And so small did he deem the responsibility that he apportioned off for this duty a mere lad, who, so soon as he felt the ship asleep beneath him, got in under the bilges of the long boat, as she lay on her chocks in the waist, and once out of the rain, was soon snoring there like the rest of us.

Now, from what I learnt afterwards, the pirate knew of our coming almost before our anchors had hold of the ground. A party of her men, it seems, had been hunting in the forest in the hopes of picking up a deer by way of fresh meat, and had feared that we might be an armed vessel sent by Governor Codrington in search of them; and had returned to their own vessel forthwith to help in resisting any attack. But a spy-boat they sent out learnt our truer nature, and from thoughts of defence they leapt up at once to dreams of theft.

They studied the weight of the breeze, the distance, the pace of their own misbegotten craft; and arranged to lay us by the board a bell after midnight. And this they did, avoiding the least creak of gear or the least shout of command till their bulwarks ground against our round black sides. It was only then for the first time that our miserable anchor-guard woke, and shrieked the alarm, and ran to rouse the forecastle. It was too late.

Out of the wet darkness the pirates in a swarm were leaping down into the scow's waist. In half the tongues of the world they raised a very babel of sound, shouting ferociously, so as to keep up their own bravery, and to drown, so far as might be, the courage of anyone who opposed them. They came on, brandishing swords and pikes, firing pistols in the faces of all who came out to receive them, and afterwards breaking into the houses at either end of the scow and slaughtering all who dared to raise a hand in defence.

It was thus that in the alley-way I myself went down. I was exchanging passes with one pirate who stabbed at my face with a pike, and another caught me a welt over the head from behind, which stretched me senseless. And there I lay; and the fight stamped over me till it came to an end, after which they dragged me out and threw my limp body into a scupper.

The captain was killed, the mate was killed; but the supercargo they found, and compelled with torture to deliver up the Plantation Brothers' manifest. They set marks against what they coveted, and compelled those who were left of our crew and passengers to work cargo and breakout the pieces. But the money they gathered themselves from where it lay underneath the captain's bedplace.

And then came the horrid business with which these fiends always end all their boardings. One of their first manoeuvres had been to find casks of rum and set them a-broach all over the ship, so that no man need walk three yards between his drinks. And-by the time the cargo had been apportioned to their liking, there were twenty of them lying like logs about the deck, whilst the rest were strung up in any ferocity which might befall. The air was sour with the smell of blood which had been already spilt, and it required only a mere touch to drive them into further slaughterings.

It was an action of the supercargo's which put the final match to their savagery. That poor man was driven half lunatic by the tortures he had undergone already, and when one of the pirates offered him further indignities he snatched a knife and drove it home hilt-deep into the brute's throat.

Within a minute the others had fallen upon this unfortunate supercargo, and cut him to pieces with indescribable fury, and then a cry rose that the rest of our company should also be sacrificed. A gangway was knocked out, a plank rigged over the side, and its end well greased with the cork's slush tub. One by one our poor ship's company were led blindfolded, each wearing a slung-shot round his middle, and hands tied behind his back. And one by one these sea thieves thrust them on with pike stabs and shouts of ribald laughter, till all walked into eternity off the plank's end.

Then a cry arose about the women. Some were for sending them after the men; but though most were for taking them on board of their own private ship;  none would resign his own claim to the fairest. And over this dispute knives were drawn, and the quarrel rang high into the night. The pirate captain settled it.

"You shall none of you have the wenches," he cried. "They shall all be set a-swimming." said he, and then asked if anyone disputed his verdict. One fool uplifted his unlucky voice, whereupon the captain shot him by way of repartee, and the rest roared with laughter at his pointed wit. He had an excellent way of handling his rogues had this same Captain Burgoyne.

So came on the culminating tragedy. The women were brought up half fainting, and one by one were cast into the waters of the bay alongside. Mary Codrington was the last of the victims, and she went to her death crying my name aloud into the night.

My torpid brain awoke. My senses came back to me. In that instant I became a greater savage than any of those pirates on the Plantation Brothers' "Fletcher!" she had called. "Fletcher, Fletcher, save me!" and I lay helpless in the scupper and could do nothing, except send up an oath of vengeance.

ii

NOW I HAD recovered from the effects of the blow, like a man waked from sleep by a water douche, so completely had the cry roused me. My senses were all tense strung. I lay there in the scuppers giving no sign of life, but thinking till my head was like split with the strain. Vengeance was a thing I had got to have. The lust for that vengeance brimmed in me. The pirate scow had slipped her grapples, had dropped down a cable's length astern of us, and how. lay there at single anchor with her topsails lowered and courses in the brails.

The cargo which they wished to take away had already been transhipped, and the pirates were leaving the Plantation Brothers' deck. The few who remained were firing our scow in twenty places, and their boat awaited them, bum pine with the tide at the foot of the gangway cleats.

With the caution of an Indian I slipped from amongst the stack of corpses. I picked up a sword which belonged to one of them and buckled it on to my thigh. Then I slid forward in a patch of shadow to where a rope dangled over the bulwark rail, and with that I lowered myself into the water without splash or sound. I struck out for the pirate, and thanked Heaven then that it had been one of my conceits to rival an otter in power of swimming.

I ferried myself across to the other scow, taking long dives so as not to court observation, and then passed astern of her, laying hold of the bight of a rudder pennant, and hanging there with only my nostrils above the surface. It was my design to remain there till the pirates were all returned again, to wait till they were every one asleep, and then to creep on board and fire their magazine. Drunk as they were, I did not expect to find any guard set; and if there were one, then I felt confident of killing him; and afterwards, so soon as I found a light in the powder-room, I would set that shipload of fiends a cruise into eternity and go with them to look for my lost darling.

The scheme lay in my head all cut and dried. As I hung there in the water, I hugged myself with glee at the thought of how certain and quick an! complete would be my vengeance.

And then, when the boat brought the last load of the pirates on board, my precious plot was split with all completeness.

"Run in those guns and secure them I heard Burgoyne's voice sing out above my head. "Heave short. Hands make sail; jump lively now, you. drunken dogs, or look out for my pistol! I've no use in this ship for a man who can't hold his liquor and do work when it's wanted."

A muzzy voice answered him. "I done my whack for this day, skipper, and now I want a watch below. You land the other beggars―"

Crack! went Burgoyne's pistol. "That's one," said he. "Now any other fool got any remark to make?

"We're going across the bay right now to a place I know of to cache this last six month's loot; and the less hands there are to claim, the better for those that are left. Now then, speak out if you're anxious, and I'll shoot. I'm not playing this 'jolly rover' game for amusement. It's a business matter with me, and so the more plunder there is to be made, the better, and I'd wipe my own brother if he were aboard this scow just now, and gave me an opening."

This time there was no retort, and the scow was got under way in sulky silence. The wash from her wake nearly dragged me from my perch, but presently, they passed their boat to tow astern, and I dropped back to her, and clambered over the gunwale, and coiled my self snugly away on a lug sail which lay beneath the forward grating.

Clearly it was no use boarding the vessel in her present state  of wakefulness. But I hugged myself with joy to think that soon, saving for a drowsy few, they would all be snoring, and that I could climb the rail, and dash down, and fire the powder  before a dozen of them had knocked the sleep from their heavy eyes.  But again, it seems, I was fated to reckon against the event. The scow continued to bustle with life. The breeze held stiff, the ebb-tide helped, and the cruise lasted a bare hour and a half. Before I knew, she had entered the mouth of a creek, run down sail, come to an anchor, and hauled the boat alongside.

I looked up through the grating, and saw the men at the gangway in eager discussion. The night was beginning to thin, and I could make out their faces dimly. Burgoyne was always conspicuous; a squat, clean-shaven man, with a great purple splash of a birthmark smeared across his left cheek from chin to eyebrow. It would have been rank suicide to have shown myself then, and so I crept beneath the lug-sail, and prayed that no-one would discover me, and so wrest my vengeance away.

From a spy-hole I saw a negro and four white men climb down into the boat. From their talk I discovered that two of these last were English, one a Frenchman, and the other, who spoke not at all, turned out to be a Finn whom they kept on board from his supposed influence over the winds. The pirates above had rigged a whip to their mainyard arm, and with this they lowered down a dozen boxes and kegs, which were stowed on the floor of the boat. Then Captain Burgoyne himself followed, and took the tiller, and the others settled themselves on the thwarts, shoved off, and shipped oars. The men were all armed with pistols and hangers, and watched the captain like terriers as they rowed.

Our boat cruise was slow and tedious, for the boat was cumbersome and the current strong. The day came up hot and bright, and the rowers swore as the sweat rolled from them. From my cranny I could see high forest trees, which closed in behind us as the river curved. It was midnight before they drove the boat's nose on a beach of soft white sand, and disembarked, and carried the kegs and chests away out of sight behind the wall of trees.

Not until their voices had grown dim in the forest did I dare to leave my nest. But then I thrust my head up over the gunwale and saw the place was empty; and when I judged them to be entirely of earshot I got up, and with an oar loom beat through the flooring of the boat in a dozen places, so that she was irretrievably staved. Then with my sword ready for the draw, I ran across the beach and followed them through the forest aisles.

For one to whom wood-craft had been a daily, sport, there was little toil in picking up that trail. And so I followed the path at a brisk trot, never making a rustle or breaking a twig beneath my feet, and thus, as it appeared, landed at the clearing only a very short time after they had begun to dig. They had only their hangers for picks, and their hands to act as spades; and in that warm, hot stew of air they were very nearly choked with the violence of their exertions. But they, never flinched from their labour, and the two pits in the middle of the clearing grew in depth and blackness.  Only once was there any suggestion of a halt, and that came from the Frenchman, who said he considered they had gone deep enough.  Burgoyne took him up fiercely.

"Do you?" he said. "Then you are not to consider here, I do that; now get on; and if you don't like that, come up here and take your iron, and meet me  man to man upon the grass." The fellow did not retort, and the captain, with his birthmark gone black under the exertion, and his clothes filthy with soil, went back to scraping his own pit deeper.

There were five of these ruffians, to be sure, but every minute they worked they were tiring themselves more, and from my hiding-place behind the live-oaks I hugged myself with the thought that soon they would begin to return to the creek through the darkening forest aisles; and I might commence to slay.

But again the course of events (as they had done so many times already) happened differently to those of my calculations.

The pits were pronounced deep enough, the treasure-chests were lowered, and the soil was being shovelled back again, when suddenly the captain's mood took a new turn. With a quick blow he stabbed to the heart the Finn who was working beside him, so that the body toppled on to one of the Englishmen who were stamping down the soil below; and then, before that fellow could disengage himself he was shot dead through the button of his cap.

Then with shouts Burgoyne ran to the other pit, where the three remaining men, aroused by the shot (and probably prepared for such an event) stood amongst the grass ready to receive him. They all fired, I think, together, so that the clearing hung blue with pistol smoke. But when it cleared I saw the second English sailor writhing on the ground, while Burgoyne, with, his left arm hanging useless, was furiously engaging the two survivors.

If they could have got one on other side of him as they were naturally trying to do from the very first onset, the fight would have been over in a dozen passes. But Burgoyne, clumsily built though he might be, was a very marvel for activity. He leaped from place to place like a cat, lunging and thrusting at each adversary in turn, and screaming, too, like a cat when the raw bones of his broken arm grated upon one another. He wounded each of them in the first half-dozen passes, and was wounded by each in return but they were all three leaping about to rapidly for any blow to go thoroughly home, and the wounds were merely scratches, which only served further to enrage if such a thing were possible.

None of the three, it appeared, had a pistol which remained loaded, or the difference might have been settled after a very short skirmish; and so, as it was, they had to pant in and out of the hummocks, which lay hidden by the grass of the clearing, till they were all three well nigh burst for want of breath. But still they fought on, with mouths open and eyes goggling, and from my hiding-place in the rim of the forest I watched them with a cruel glee. I had no chivalry to spare about the matter. They had murdered my love, and I had got to kill as many of that pirate crew as was possible before I myself went to join her.

At last, however, the black tripped, and Burgoyne's sword was through, him before he touched the ground. Then the captain turned and engaged the Frenchman with indescribable fury. But the final duel was of short duration. There was no doubt is to which was the finer swordsman, and the Frenchman knew it, and lost heart.

Of a sudden he turned to run, but the other sprang after him, and pinked him fairly between the shoulders. The cutlass was jerked out of Burgoyne's hand and he made no effort to recover it. He sank down into the grass, and lay there face downwards, getting back his breath in sobs, and tearing at the grass blades with his fingers.

iii

I WENT up to the pirate captain, treading like an Indian, and stood over him. He did not hear me even then. But I stirred him with my blade, and he turned over on an elbow and glanced up. As he looked, I fancied the birthmark on his face paled a trifle, as well it might.

"Oh," he said, between the catches of his breath, "who are you?"

"I was a passenger on the Plantation Brothers yesterday night. To-day, I shall act as your executioner."

"Well," he said, eyeing me up and down, "you have a name, I suppose?"

"They call me Fletcher Legassic."

"Ah! Of plantation near Jamestown?"

I nodded.

"Well, young man, your uncle was in the King's service with me, and if he could stand here to speak for me, he would tell you I was a fellow officer who had served him well."

"He would tell me to kill the man who had disgraced the King's coat."

He sat himself up, nursing his wounded arm, and, looking at me curiously, "Oh, of course you are sore about it now. No man likes to see his friend killed. But if you cool down a little and think, you'll see that I shall be of more value to you alive than dead. Now you Legassics are none of you rich men; you have only 'family', which is a thing I possess myself; and I never found that it could he converted into ready Met.

"But there is £90,000 buried in these two pits yonder, and I don't mind going shares with you over it.'

"No, stop a minute," he went on, seeing that I was about to interrupt him; "Hear me out. You were going to say that if you knock me on the head, there's nothing to prevent you taking all instead of only a part. Well, that is not so. I have explored this place most thoroughly. There are swamps all round, and nothing that does not fly can get over them. The only way from here is the road we came. But if you went in that boat back down the creek, you would simply go to your death.  There is very little trust in this pirating trade; and the rest of our crew will be watching the entrance of that creek like dogs, to see that we don't give them the go-bye. But if I go with you it will be all right; I can turn the brutes round my fingers; and they must have me, because I am the only creature on the scow who can navigate, and l give you my word of honour to stand by you to the last drop."

"Your word of honour!" I interrupted scornfully.

"Well," he said quickly, "why not? You think I'm a liar because I'm a pirate. I was a king's officer once, and I only, left that service because of this face of mine. Look at me!" he cried, with a burst of savage energy. "It's a face to frighten the devil, let alone any captain who could recommend an officer for promotion."

"I do not want your personal history," I said rudely. "You are a murdering pirate now, and that's enough for me. And, if it pleases you to learn it, I may tell you that the plan you suggest could not be managed even if I chose to fall in with it, which I do not."

"How is that?" he said. " Because, before I left here, I staved the boat." He did not question the accuracy of this statement. He pursed his lips together and gave a thin whistle, and I meanwhile was endeavouring to recover my repugnance to being a common executioner. I felt I ought to kill the man and be done with it.

"Well, Mr. Legassic," said he, "you've made a mess of me every way, and that's a fact, and I don't think I bear much malice either, because I should have done quite the same if I'd been in your shoes. But it appears to me rather shabby treatment that, after serving your uncle, you should up and slit my throat as though it were a pig's. Now, don't you think it would be handsomer if you let me go up, and take a sword, and fence till you fairly knocked me over in hot blood? You'd think a deal better of yourself afterwards if you did treat me that way."

"I wouldn't demean myself by fighting a duel with such a person as you."

He nursed his wounded arm, grimacing with pain.

"You colonials have darned little sense of sport about you," he said. "But I suppose you think your fence is weak. Well, I'm not a very formidable customer just now. I've a matter of ten holes in me at one place or another."

He was angering me up to the requisite pitch.

"I give you just two minutes," I said, "to make your peace with God, if you dare speak to Him."

"Well," he said, "if you won't give any better terms, I suppose I must be content with those," and shutting his eyes, he painfully scrambled to his knees, and faced the grass with a bent head. I stood there watching him. The tree frogs, and the crickets; and the, jar-flies made their noises from the forest, and a thin air came through the trees which heat a chill upon my wet clothes. The corpses of the five men lay half hidden by the rank grass of the clearing; the place was made squalid by their earthworks; and the loneliness of it all hit me like a whip. Then of a sudden the pirate before me rose from, his knees with a bound, and before I could draw back elbow for a thrust, had darted away for the trees.

"By God, I'll have a run for my money," he cried, and dived in amongst the timber. I could have laughed aloud. The pirate with his clumsy seaman's tread could scarcely have distanced a schoolgirl, whilst I, not a week before, had beaten the pick of Virginia in Governor Codrington's sports. But none the less I strode after him with vigour.

He was wounded in the left thigh, and the blood reddened his shoe; but such was the indomitable courage of the man that he scarcely limped as he ran, and as I pressed on behind him in the hunt, a feeling that was almost admiration sprang up within my breast. I felt as though I could not run him through from behind, and slackened my stride so that l kept a few paces in the rear. I shouted too him telling him to turn and take his blow like a man. But he struggled doggedly on, spurting crimson on the leavers as he ran, and ever, with the instinct of a seaman, making towards the water.

And then of a sudden a strange thing happened.  He tripped and fell, gave a slight struggle or two, and then lay still, saving for a slight twitching of the feet. In my haste of following I had nearly fallen over him, and, indeed, had partly to leap over his body to avoid it. But I was quick in turning, expecting some monkey trick, and menaced him with a ready point.

"Come," I said, "you have had your run," and stirred him rudely with my foot, in hopes that he would fly at me and that then I might kill him in a moment of hotness. But he gave no sign of movement, budged not even when I prodded him with my point,  that at last I stopped to examine him.

And, indeed, a happy thing had occurred for my easement; for dead indeed he was. Yet this man, whose life had been made up of battling with a thousand violent dangers, had come by his end in a manner which might well have befallen a fat old nurse. He had stumbled and tripped forward, his chin had pitched on a moss-grown rock, and his neck had snapped like a rotten twig. Dead he was, and whilst my hands were on his still warm body, he himself was down answering for his sins elsewhere.

So that is how it came to pass that of all men living I alone knew where the treasure of those pirates was stored, and in time to come I, Fletcher Legassic, returned there and dug it up, and after restoring what little was claimed, held the rest as my own according to the King's written letter.

__________________

26: Christmas 1837 - 2037

Sydney Mail (NSW), 1 December 1937

'THE good old family-gathering Christmas, with holly berries, and waits, and plum pudding twinkling with blue flames, and all the rest of it, has vanished,' so say many thousands of grumblers. They add, I am afraid without thought of accurate details: 'I wish we could have back the dear old Christmas of a hundred years ago.'

Please imagine yourself my guest in this house where I write for the Christmastide of 1837. It is fine, white, blustering, seasonable weather outside, and because, very rightly, you didn't think wheels would get you through our abominable roads— since John Loudon Macadam had not tampered with this village's trails— you parked your change in saddle-bags and rode.

Being a good horseman you rather fussed my groom over seeing your quad strapped down, fed and bedded, and as a careful man you threw out on to the snow the priming from your pistols before you came into the house. You said your boots had frozen on you. A boot-jack was brought, and warmed list slippers, and what suited you thoroughly, a jorum of hot brandy and water. You did, in an absent moment, put in a suggestion for whisky and were rather stiffly informed that this newfangled foreign drink had never put its vulgar odour inside our doors.

The blaze on the big open hearth in the hall fascinated you, in spite of the fact that it backfired its smoke rather frequently. 'Coal!' said you, 'sea -coal! Oddzooks! You can't have burnt up all your timber?'

His hostess purred. That coal had been carted seventeen miles through axle-deep mud from the new canal at Ripton as a special Christmas luxury. 'Perhaps you'd like a hot bath,' said she, 'after your chilly ride? I daresay we could manage one.' But of course you assured her that baths were things you never tampered with during the winter.

A MAID came with a tray of flat candlesticks, each with its tallow dip lighted, each with its loose wick accurately cut, each carrying a pair of snuffers, each with its attendant flint and steel and tinder. It was snowing outside, and as the roof of your bedroom (good sir or madam) was not underdrawn, a powder of the white flakes drifted in through the thatch. Heat from the blazing log fire melted these in mid-air, and the boards of the floor were pocked with spots of wet. The rag rug at the side of the great four-poster bed was damp as a sponge, but the cloth roof above the posts kept the snow from the bedding. When you turned in you would draw the thick curtains round the bed to keep out draughts, though, as the small windows were not made to open, these came from the leaky roof above. We were widely alive to the danger of fresh air on Christmas Eve in 1837.

CHRISTMAS Day showed up bright and frosty. The chimes from the church-tower, with largesse of beer in the offing, rang out during, breakfast, and though the tenor bell was cracked, the blacksmith who pulled its rope did his best. After breakfast the men went into consultation over port. It was pointed out that two bottles per head for adults was rather stingy allowance. But the mistress of the house had newfangled ideas about menfolk being able to navigate to bedrooms under their own power, so the meagre two bottles allowance was agreed to. The host, however, drew from a cobwebbed back recess of the cellar, dusty club shaped bottles of 1820, and it was agreed that quality might make up for decent quantity. It was decanted with ceremonial care.

Church at 10.30. There was no heating, of course, even in the bigger loose- box pews, but the red noses of the congregation gave quite an air of warmth to the building. Parson and clerk, in surplice and sown, did most of the service, though the tailor and the cobbler helped with fiddle and double base. The Parson changed from surplice to banns and Geneva gown before he climbed to the attic story of the three decker pulpit to preach. Merry Christmases all round, and then those interested went off to inspect hounds and look over the horses. Also the gentlemen took advantage of the occasion to put in a call at the saddle-room to smoke their seegars, an unseemly habit which the lady of the house politely ignored.

THERE was no tap water laid on in this house in 1837, and all supplies were pumped from a well which was fed from the various open gutters, or drawn off from barrels which collected from the roofs. Our few dry-stone drains were supposed to soak away their burden into mother earth. Whale-oil smoked and smelt in our lamps, and the penny post was some years distant. People merely did not write letters. The dear old tipsified doctor prescribed port, rhubarb and Epsom salts with cheerful impartiality, and on the whole did his patients little harm with drugs, though when he used the knife he was a septic danger, and sent seventy-five per cent, of them into one or other of the next worlds. Instead of anaesthetics he curbed the struggles of his patients with a cart-rope. Our newspapers were at least a day old. but as they were too dull' to read, nobody was much put out by their staleness. We were more out of touch with London than we are to-day with New York.

This house was built in Tudor times for strength and comeliness, but it was also built for defence. You never knew who or what might turn up next, though the raids of the Picts and Scots were we hoped done with. Chartists, for instance, were muttering in the background. So all our doors were thick, and our windows fitted with shutters with bells on them, and at sundown all these defences to the house were swung into their seatings and securely barred.

FOURTEEN children had been born to the house, and of these the eldest was in India with his John Company Regiment, the second had called his man out last spring and had come off second best, and the two youngest were still in the nursery. But ten faced the shining oak of the refectory table, and tried to pretend they preferred the reek of sea-coal-smoke to the pleasant perfume of burning wood they had been brought up with. Altogether we sat down twenty-two, and there was a brace of carving centres along each side of the table and one each at head and foot, making six in all. The Parson said grace, and the church chimes in the cold night outside, with the cracked tenor calling loudest, accompanied him.

Barring that barrel of oysters which you, honoured sir, so thoughtfully brought, all the food except the currants and raisins in the puddings and the mince-pies was of home production. Trout had gone out of season, and we were too far from the coast to get sea fish. Soups we rather despised, though they gave an excuse for a preliminary glass of sherry. But a prize bullock had been killed for the occasion and we had a baron of him roasted (on a jack) , two silversides pickled and boiled, turkeys boiled and turkeys roasted, a boned pig's head boiled, a ditto roasted, and an assortment of partridges, pheasants, woodcock, hares and so on, plain roasted on the spit and not messed up with frills or sauces. They were all home products, as I say. Even the brown wax candles (that were in perpetual need of snuffing) were the produce of our own bees and an iron casting-box.

For drinks we had good strong October ale, brewed of course on the premises, and French clarets, white and red. Every man had beside him a pint decanter of sherry 'as a whitewash.' For dessert there were winter pears and winter apples, roasted chestnuts brought in hot and hot in a napkin, crystallised scarlet Serbian crabs and crystallised apricots. Against each man's place four port glasses, to do justice to the various vintages, gleamed against the oak, and of course the little sherry decanter remained in place for ready reference. The women ate dessert, took one glass of port, and retired to music in the drawing-room. And then, as the host remarked with a pleasant sigh, then began the business of the evening.

We settled down to steady port drinking, with a tot of sherry as a whitewash, and a clean glass for every new vintage— 1820 it was, some of it. Gentlemen of England knew port in those days and could talk about it as well as you, madam, can tell us about furs, or you, sir, about your beastly income-tax in this year of grace 1937. You sir, the jolly donor of the oysters, are on record as having distinguished yourself by producing two unsuspected decanters of port from under your chair. And so in due time to bed, some by stair, some by rail, but many of the sound three-bottle gentlemen securely upright.

So there, sir or madam, is what I believe to be a fair picture of Christmas, 1837. Do you still feel you would like to drop motor cars, and hotels, and telephones, and tarmac roads, and jazz bands, and cigarettes and change down? I still have in my cellar a few bottles of that wonderful 1820 port laid down by my reverend grandfather in old club-shaped containers, but rebottled by my father in the 'sixties. It must have been a great wine in its day. It is still.

Christmas, 2037

THE year two thousand and thirty-seven gave us a 'white Christmas,' and, by consequence, a shaken Government. Weather control commenced, of course, in the nineteen-fifties, but the world is slow in taking up new ideas, and as the League of Nations appointed itself as the Apportioner of Rain Supplies, naturally anything that looked at all practical was shelved. Oddly enough, it was the Philippine Republic which was the first to take the bit in its teeth and tell the League where to go to, and issued on its own a calendar giving rainfalls of definite gallons per acre on definite dates. The Balkans followed. England came in later via a Limited Company which was afterwards taken over compulsorily by the Government, under some obsolete Public Utility Act issued in the days of Anne.

In the year 2037 nobody under the age of forty had seen snow in England, and some old poet fellow, whose name I have forgotten, put up a song and dance about its joys and glories. Then the Socialist Party, which was short of a grievance at the moment, discovered that shovelling snow was a profitable industry which had been taken away from the poor by the greed of the capitalists who controlled the weather, and there we had the House of Commons alight, and the Government majority down to three before anybody knew what was happening. So a Bill was rushed through ordaining that every fifth Christmas should henceforth be furnished with four days of snow, and 2037 was the first of the series. It was hailed, for some obscure reason, as a Jubilee year, and the radio droned advice and cautions about snowfalls and their treatment all through the fore-end of December. The Socialists were highly jubilant at their victory. Women's fur shops made fortunes.

WE had to do a good deal of hunting through old books, mostly novels, to find out details of that obsolete form of entertainment, an English Christmas House Party. Nola— she's the younger of my two wives— did most of the research work; Chellie was too much taken up with the new experience of rubbing her face against a seal-skin collar to bother much about ancient precedent; and I personally am quite ignorant on the subject of domestic economics of a century back. So I expect that as an exact copy of the fine old English Christmas Party of 1937, our show was a bit inaccurate in spots. Still, we rang up Mexico City for a good thing in turkeys, and ordered a turbot from the Greenland fishermen if one could be caught, and applied to the British Museum for a recipe for the globular plum-pudding which was a delicacy well known to our great-grandparents. Nola, who was a great reader before we were married, said that the Victorians, and the Romans, and the other peoples of antiquity, used at Christmas to eat oysters from Whitstable, but that city, which I gather had been somewhere in Wales, has somehow or other vanished. However, that didn't matter. Oysters from what I have seen of them in pictures must have been gritty food anyway, and dangerous to our dental plates. Also — ugh! — our barbarous ancestors ate them raw, and of course if Nola had wanted me to follow suit, she being the dear she is, I should have had to have done it.

NOLA, as I say, dug up authentic details of the 1937 house party, but Chellie, who can't help remembering now and then that she is senior wife, said she didn't expect her guests to turn up rigged out in skins, and although she would swallow the turkey and the turbot if they came to table, and were cooked in modern fashion, she declined to nibble at shells, cooked or otherwise. Also, as we had splashed out into the latest things in fractional stereoscopic television sets, she was firmly determined to work those in somehow, whether they clashed with the holly berry scheme or didn't. Nola said it had been just too sweet of Chellie to back up her suggestion of running me into buying the set, though, of course, stereoscopic television would be a horrid freak when it was dished up with roast turkey stuffed with chestnuts. As a row was brewing at that point, I am afraid I left them.

THE desirability, or otherwise, of the snow when it arrived depended of course on the political views of the Party to which you belonged, and on that point I am going to hold a cautious silence. Nola said snow was delightful; Chellie groused about spoiled rushes on her floors; powder for blue noses was in large demand. Fourteen of us ought to have sat down to our Christmas blowout, but Aunt Grizel, who was flying down from Edinburgh, used horrid radio to explain that her gravity accumulator was frozen somewhere near Shap, and as Chellie wasn't going to sit down thirteen for anybody, she naturally had a tray sent for me to the study. I'd permission to slip into the dining-room with the dessert, and found my two wives at the ends of the table, both of them feeling queen bees, and the show going with a buzz, in spite of a smoky chimney caused by the snow. Still the fumes did not matter. One appreciated the luxury of the new open fire after the old steam heat. Chellie looked extremely handsome in a gown of iridescent green feathers from a mallard's neck. But I liked my little Nola's outfit best. She was in simple woad as usual.

Our party by this time had expanded, and the number varied from twelve to a hundred and twenty. The idea had been my dear little Nola's, the staff work as usual my stout Chellie's. Chellie had run me up a bill for messages all the world over which made my bank account look a bit sick, but, as usual, she had got the goods. Very capable wife, Chellie, though expensive in upkeep. Her timing was to a split second, and would have been a fine example to the B.B.C. if it hadn't died.

There were fourteen talkie television sets on the long table amongst the flowers, all synchronised. The new stereoscopic gadget made the people who appeared on them seem as solid as if they were in the room. They brought their own backgrounds with them— a Japanese tea garden complete with almond-blossom and stiff little dancing girls; a West African palm-oil factory with drums in the distance; the manager's house at a Spitsbergen coalmine, with the windows blocked by a snowdrift that was more real than any of ours ; and a big dinner party at the Jockey Club in Mexico City that had unfortunately developed into a knife-fight. Each addition to our evening was fiddled on by its appropriate scent, that being Nola's bright thought, carried through, of course, by Chellie, who could always be relied upon to worry out difficult details. Chellie also, the stout dear, had remembered to provide deodorisers, so that each scent was efficiently cancelled, so to speak, before another blew into the room.

Naturally we were all friends — especially the Spitsbergen lot, who were in-laws— and were only too delighted at the chance of a Christmas chat. But low be it spoken, I am afraid some of the impromptu jokes and nice things that were said had been rehearsed pretty well beforehand. My nephew Dick in Lagos certainly did call out 'Hullo, uncle, how are things with you?' but as this was an obvious impromptu, and as I had nothing special to say, Nola very neatly ignored me, and carried on with the general talk. I should have been interested to go on looking at and hearing the Jockey Club mix-up, but Chellie (who says she is a bundle of nerves) thought it too gory for a dinner party, and switched over to a Swahili dance in Kenya, which she was holding over as a second string, and even put on a full effect stable smell that nearly made me sick. However, she cancelled that after a couple of blasts, and gave us a chat with the Van Rennans in Honolulu, with frangipani accompaniment to take the taste out of our noses. The stereoscopic effect was so good during this talk, and old Pat Van Rennan looked so solid and real, that I wanted to shake hands with him, till someone asked if I'd whacked a whole decanter of my 1999— Eclipse year— port in the study. I got a bit bored after that, and faded off to bed about ten without anybody noticing. The others kept it up till four.

I CAN look back at our dining-room now, with its fine old solid Victorian mahogany, and the rare wax fruits under their glass domes, and the antimacassars on the chairs, and the rich ball fringes on the hangings all in keeping with the most modern taste, and wonder how the primitives fared in the savage days of 1937. They ate, so we are told, with dangerous knives and forks, so as to have them handy for weapons one supposes, and hardly one in a thousand took his (or her) meal with dainty chop-sticks; they had glaring electrics to light their rooms, since potted sunlight was not to arrive till fifty years later; and they still went out to evening parties in primitive petrol-driven aeroplanes. They were a barbaric lot, our ancestors of 1937. One shudders to think of their discomforts.

End

Table of Contents

- 1: Yellow Jack House in Vera Cruz
- 2: The Roulette Lady in Hull.
- 3: Mrs. Davidson and P.P.I.
- 4: The Boiled Fishhouse In Marseilles
- 5: Crossing The Bar At Tampico
- 6: The Pirate Syndicate In  New York
- 7: The Sandbaggers In Liverpool
- 8: The Squint-Eyed Crimp At Las Palmas
- 9: The Yacht Repairing Slip at Glasgow
- 10: The Matter Of The Half Camel in Mogador
- 11: The Trawler's Shell Chest in Fleetwood
- 12: The Bastinado in Algiers
- 13: The Lady in the Sack at Plymouth
- 14: The Stuffed Sunfish at Genoa
- 15: The Gray Hair
- 16: Guaranteed Countess
- 17: In Memoriam
- 18: The Salvage Hunter
- 19: The King Diamond
- 20: Run Down
- 21: The Race
- 22: The Mine Layer
- 23: The Colonel
- 24: A Baptism Of Fire
- 25: The Holder of the Spoil
- 26: Christmas 1837 - 2037