THE GRAVEN IMAGE
I had every reason to be satisfied with my disguise,--if such it couldbe called. Captain Selover at first failed to recognise me. Then he burstinto his shrill cackle.
"Didn't know you," he trebled. "But you look shipshape. Come, I'll showyou your quarters."
Immediately I discovered what I had suspected before; that on so small aschooner the mate took rank with the men rather than the afterguard.Cabin accommodations were of course very limited. My own lurked in thewaist of the ship--a tiny little airless hole.
"Here's where Johnson stayed," proffered Selover. "You can bunk here, oryou can go in the foc'sle with the men. They's more room there. We'll getunder way with the turn of the tide."
He left me. I examined the cabin. It was just a trifle larger than itssingle berth, and the berth was just a trifle larger than myself. Mychest would have to be left outside. I strongly suspected that my lungswould have to be left outside also; for the life of me I could not seewhere the air was to come from. With a mental reservation in favour ofinvestigating the forecastle, I went on deck.
The Laughing Lass was one of the prettiest little schooners I eversaw. Were it not for the lines of her bilges and the internal arrangementof her hold, it might be imagined she had been built originally as apleasure yacht. Even the rake of her masts, a little forward of theplumb, bore out this impression, which a comparatively new suit ofcanvas, well stopped down, brass stanchions forward, and two little gunsunder tarpaulins, almost confirmed. One thing struck me as peculiar. Hercomplement of boats was ample enough. She had two surf boats, a dingy,and a dory slung to the davits. In addition another dory,--the one youpicked me up in--was lashed to the top of the deck house.
"They'd mighty near have a boat apiece," I thought, and went forward.
Just outside the forecastle hatch I paused. Someone below was singing ina voice singularly rich in quality. The words and the quaintness of theminor air struck me immensely and have clung to my memory like a burrever since.
"'Are you a man-o'-war or a privateer,' said he. Blow high, blow low, what care we! 'Oh, I am a jolly pirate, and I'm sailing for my fee.' Down on the coast of the high Barbare-e-e."
I stepped to the companion. The voice at once ceased. I descended.
A glimmer of late afternoon struggled through the deadlights. I foundmyself in a really commodious space,--extending far back of where theforward bulk-heads are usually placed,--accommodating rows and row ofbunks--eighteen of them, in fact. The unlighted lamp cast its shadow onwood stained black by much use, but polished like ebony from thecontinued friction of men's garments. I wish I could convey to you theuncanny effect, this--of dropping from the decks of a miniature craft tothe internal arrangements of a square-rigged ship. It was as though,entering a cottage door, you were to discover yourself on the floor ofMadison Square Garden. A fresh sweet breeze of evening sucked down thehatch. I immediately decided on the forecastle. Already it was beingborne in on me that I was little more than a glorified bo's'n's mate. Thesituation suited me, however. It enabled me to watch the course of eventsmore safely, less exposed to the danger of recognition.
I stood for a moment at the foot of the companion accustoming my eyes tothe gloom. After a moment, with a shock of surprise, I made out a shiningpair of bead-points gazing at me unblinkingly from the shadow under thebitts. Slowly the man defined himself, as a shape takes form in a fog. Hewas leaning forward in an attitude of attention, his elbows resting onhis knees, his forearms depending between them, his head thrust out. Icould detect no faintest movement of eyelash, no faintest sound ofbreathing. The stillness was portentous. The creature was exactly like awax figure, one of the sort you meet in corridors of cheap museums andfor a moment mistake for living beings. Almost I thought to make out thecustomary grey dust lying on the wax of his features.
I am going to tell you more of this man, because, as you shall see, hewas destined to have much to do with my life, the fate of Dr. KarlAugustus Schermerhorn, and the doom of the Laughing Lass.
He wore on his head a red bandana handkerchief. I never saw him withother covering. From beneath It straggled oily and tangled locks ofglossy black. His face was long, narrow, hook-nosed and sinister; hiseyes, as I have described them, a steady and beady black. I could atfirst glance ascribe great activity, but only moderate strength to hisslender, wiry figure. In this I was mistaken. His sheer physical powerwas second only to that of Captain Selover. One of his forearms ended ina steel hook. At the moment I could not understand this; could not seehow a man so maimed could be useful aboard a ship. Later I wished we hadmore as handy. He knew a jam hitch which he caught over and under hishook quicker than most men can grasp a line with the naked hand. It wouldrender one way, but held fast the other. He told me it was a cinch-hookhitch employed by mule packers in the mountains, and that he had used iton swamp-hooks in the lumber woods of Michigan. I shouldn't wonder. Hewas a Wandering Jew.--His name was Anderson, but I never heard him calledthat. It was always "Handy Solomon" with men and masters.
We stared at each other, I fascinated by something, some spell of theship, which I have never been able to explain to myself--nor evendescribe. It was a mystery, a portent, a premonition such as overtakes aman sometimes in the dark passageways of life. I cannot tell you of it,nor make you believe--let it pass----
Then by a slow process of successive perceptions I became aware that Iwas watched by other eyes, other wax figures, other human beings withunwavering gaze. They seemed to the sense of mystic apprehension that forthe moment held possession of me, to be everywhere--in the bunks, on thefloor, back in the shadows, watching, watching, watching from theadvantage of another world.
I don't know why I tell you this; why I lay so much stress on the firstweird impression I got of the forecastle. It means something to menow--in view of all that happened subsequently. Almost can I look backand see, in that moment of occultism, a warning, an enlightenment----Butthe point is, it meant something to me then. I stood there fascinated,unable to move, unable to speak.
Then the grotesque figure in the corner stirred.
"Well, mates," said the man, "believe or not believe, it's in the book,and it stands to reason, too. We have gold mines here in Californy andNevada and all them States; and we hear of gold mines in Mexico andAustralia, too, but did you ever hear tell of gold mines in Europe? Tellme that! And where did the gold come from then, before they discoveredAmerica? Tell me that! Why they made it, just as the man that wrotethis-here says, and you can kiss the Book on that."
"How about that place, Ophir, I read about?" asked a voice from thebunks.
The man shot a keen glance thither from beneath his brows.
"Know last year's output from the mines of Ophir, Thrackles?" he inquiredin silky tones.
"Why, no," stammered the man addressed as Thrackles.
"Well I do," pursued the man with the steel hook, "and it's just thewhole of nothing, and you can kiss the Book on that too! There ain't anygold output, because there ain't any mines, and there never have been.They made their gold."
He tossed aside a book he had been holding in his left hand. I recognisedthe fat little paper duodecimo with amusement, and some wonder. The onlyother copy I had ever laid my eyes on is in the Astor Library. It issomewhat of a rarity, called The Secret of Alchemy, or the GrandDoctrine of Transmutation Fully Explained, and was written by a Dr.Edward Duvall,--a most extraordinary volume to have fallen into the handsof seamen.
I stepped forward, greeting and being greeted. Besides the man I havementioned they were four. The cook was a bullet-headed squat negro with abroken nose. I believe he had a name,--Robinson, or something of thatsort. He was to all of us, simply the Nigger. Unlike most of his race, hewas gloomy and taciturn.
Of the other two, a little white-faced, thin-chested youth named Pulz,and a villainous-looking Mexican called Perdosa, I shall have more to saylater.
My arrival broke the talk on alchemy. It resumed its course in thedirection of our voyage. Each discovered that the others knew nothing;and each blundered against the astounding fact of double wages.
"All I know is the pay's good; and that's enough," concluded Thrackles,from a bunk.
"The pay's too good," growled Handy Solomon.
"This ain't no job to go look at the 'clipse of the moon, or the devil'sa preacher!"
"W'at you maik heem, den?" queried Perdosa.
"It's treasure, of course," said Handy Solomon shortly.
"He, he, he!" laughed the negro, without mirth.
"What's the matter with you, Doctor?" demanded Thrackles.
"Treasure!" repeated the Nigger. "You see dat box he done carry socairful? You see dat?"
A pause ensued. Somebody scratched a match and lit a pipe.
"No, I don't see that!" broke out Thrackles finally, with someimpatience. "I sabe how a man goes after treasure with a box; butwhy should he take treasure away in a box? What do you think, Bucko?" hesuddenly appealed to me.
I looked up from my investigation of the empty berths.
"I don't think much about it," I replied, "except that by the look of thestores we're due for more than Honolulu; and from the look of the lightwe'd better turn to on deck."
An embarrassed pause fell.
"Who are you, anyway?" bluntly demanded the man with the steel hook.
"My name is Eagen," I replied; "I've the berth of mate. Which of thesebunks are empty?"
They indicated what I desired with just a trace of sullenness. Iunderstood well enough their resentment at having a ship's officerquartered on them,--the forec'stle they considered as their only libertywhen at sea, and my presence as a curtailment to the freedom of speech. Isubsequently did my best to overcome this feeling, but never quitesucceeded.
At my command the Nigger went to his galley, I ascended to the deck. Duskwas falling, in the swift Californian fashion. Already the outlines ofthe wharf houses were growing indistinct, and the lights of the city werebeginning to twinkle. Captain Selover came to my side and leaned over therail, peering critically at the black water against the piles.
"She's at the flood," he squeaked. "And here comes the Lucy Belle."
The tug took us in charge and puffed with us down the harbour and throughthe Golden Gate. We had sweated the canvas on her, even to the flying jiband a huge club topsail she sometimes carried at the main, for theafternoon trades had lost their strength. About midnight we drew up onthe Farallones.
The schooner handled well. Our crew was divided into three watches--anunusual arrangement, but comfortable. Two men could sail her handily inmost sorts of weather. Handy Solomon had the wheel. Otherwise the deckwas empty. The man's fantastic headgear, the fringe of his curling oilylocks, the hawk outline of his face momentarily silhouetted against thephosphorescence astern as he glanced to windward, all lent him anappearance of another day. I could almost imagine I caught the gleam ofsilver-butted horse pistols and cutlasses at his waist.
I brooded in wonder at what I had seen and how little I had explained.The number of boats, sufficient for a craft of three times the tonnage;the capacity of the forec'stle with its eighteen bunks, enough for apassenger ship,--what did it mean? And this wild, unkempt, villainouscrew with its master and his almost ridiculous contrast of neatness andfilth;--did Dr. Schermerhorn realise to what he had trusted himself andhis precious expedition, whatever it might be?
The lights of shore had sunk; the Laughing Lass staggered andleaped joyously with the glory of the open sea. She seemed alone on thebosom of the ocean; and for the life of me I could not but feel that Iwas embarked on some desperate adventure. The notion was utterlyillogical; that I knew well. In sober thought, I, a reporter, wasshadowing a respectable and venerable scientist, who in turn was probablyabout to investigate at length some little-known deep-sea conditions orphenomena of an unexplored island. But that did not suffice to myimagination. The ship, its surroundings, its equipment, its crew--allread fantastic. So much the better story, I thought, shrugging myshoulders at last.