CAPTAIN SELOVER LOSES HIS NERVE
I lived in the place for three weeks. We were afoot shortly afterdaybreak, under way by sun-up, and at work before the heats began.Three of us worked on the buildings, and the rest formed a pack traincarrying all sorts of things from the shore to the valley. The mengrumbled fiercely at this, but Captain Selover drove them with slightregard for their opinions or feelings.
"You're getting double pay," was his only word, "earn it!"
They certainly earned it during those three weeks. The things theybrought up were astounding. Besides a lot of scientific apparatus andchests of chemical supplies, everything that could possibly berequired, had been provided by that omniscient young man. After wehad built a long, low structure, windows were forthcoming, shelves,tables, sinks, faucets, forges, burners, all cut out, fitted and readyto put together, each with its proper screws, nails, clamps, or pipesready to our hands. When we had finished, we had constructed ascomplete a laboratory on a small scale as you could find on a collegecampus, even to the stone pillar down to bed-rock for delicatemicroscopic experiments, and hot and cold water led from the springs.And we were utterly unskilled. It was all Percy Darrow.
I was toward the last engaged in screwing on a fixture for thegeneration of acetelyne gas.
"Darrow," said I, "there's one thing you've overlooked; you forgotto bring a cupola and a gilt weather-cock for this concern."
After the laboratory was completed, we put up sleeping quarters forthe two men, with wide porches well screened, and a square, heavystoreroom. By the end of the third week we had quite finished.
Dr. Schermerhorn had turned with enthusiasm to the unpacking of hischemical apparatus. Almost immediately at the close of thefreight-carrying, he had appeared, lugging his precious chest, thistime suffering the assistance of Darrow, and had camped on the spot.We could not induce him to leave, so we put up a tent for him. Darrowremained with him by way of safety against the men, whose measure,I believe, he had taken. Now that all the work was finished, the doctorput in a sudden appearance.
"Percy," said he, "now we will have the defence built."
He dragged us with him to the narrow part of the arroyo, just beforeit rose to the level of the valley.
"Here we will build the stockade-defence," he announced.
Darrow and I stared at each other blankly.
"What for, sir?" inquired the assistant.
"I haf come to be undisturbed," announced the doctor, with owl-like,Teutonic gravity, "and I will not be disturbed."
Darrow nodded to me and drew his principal aside.
They conversed earnestly for several minutes. Then the assistantreturned to me.
"No use," he shrugged in complete return to his indifferent manner."Stockade it is. Better make it of fourteen foot logs, slanted out.Dig a trench across, plant your logs three or four feet, bind themat the top. That's his specification for it. Go at it."
"But," I expostulated, "what's the use of it? Even if the menwere dangerous, that would just make them think you did havesomething to guard."
"I know that. Orders," replied Percy Darrow.
We built the stockade in a day. When it was finished we marched tothe beach, and never, save in the three instances of which I shalllater tell you, did I see the valley again. The next day we washedour clothes, and moved ashore with all our belongings.
"I'm not going to have this crew aboard," stated Captain Seloverpositively, "I'm going to clean her." He himself stayed, however.
We rowed in, constructed a hasty fireplace of stones, spread ourblankets, and built an unnecessary fire near the beach.
"Clean her!" grumbled Thrackles, "my eye!"
"I'd rather round the Cape," growled Pulz hopelessly.
"Come, now, it can't be as bad as all that," I tried to cheer them."It can't be more than a week or ten days' job, even if we careen her."
"You don't know what you're talking about," said Thrackles. "It'sworse than the yellow jack. It's six weeks at least. Mind when we last'cleaned her'?" he inquired of Handy Solomon.
"You can kiss the Book on it," replied he. "Down by the line in thatlittle swab of a sand island. My eye, but don't I remember!I sweated my liver white."
They smoked in silence.
"That's a main queer contrivance of the Perfessor's--thatstockade-like," ventured Solomon, after a little.
"He doesn't want any intrusion," I said. "These scientific experimentsare very delicate."
"Quite like," he commented non-committally.
We slept on the ground that night, and next morning, under CaptainSelover's directions, we commenced the task of lightening the ship.He detailed the Nigger and Perdosa for special duty.
"I'll just see to your shore quarters," he squeaked. "You empty her."
All day long we rowed back and forth from the ship to the cove,landing the contents of the hold. These, by good fortune, we did nothave to carry over the neck of land, for just above the gravel beachwas a wide ledge on which we could pile the stores. We ate aboard,and so had no opportunity of seeing what Captain Selover and his menwere about, until evening. Then we discovered that they had collectedand lowered to the beach a quantity of stateroom doors from the wreck,and had trundled the galley stove to the edge where it awaited ourassistance. We hitched a cable to it, and let it down gently. TheNigger was immensely pleased. After some experiment he got it to draw,and so cooked us our supper on it. After supper, Captain Selover rowedhimself back to the ship.
"Eagen," he had said, drawing me aside, "I'm going to leave you withthem. It's better that one of us--I think as owner I ought to beaboard----"
"Of course, sir," said I, "it's the only proper place for you."
"I'm glad you think so," he rejoined, apparently relieved. "Andanyway," he cried, with a burst of feeling, "I hate the gritty feelingof it under my feet! Solid oak's the only walking for a man."
He left me hastily, as though a trifle ashamed. I thought he seemeddepressed, even a little furtive, and yet on analysis I could discovernothing definite on which to base such a conclusion.
It was rather a feeling of difference from the man I had known. Inmy fatigue it seemed hardly worth thinking about.
The men had rolled themselves in their blankets, tired with the longday.
Next morning Captain Selover was ashore early. He had quite recoveredhis spirits, and offered me a dram of French brandy, which I refused.We worked hard again; again the master returned at night to hisvessel, this time without a word to any of us; again the men, druggedby toil, turned in early and slept like the dead.
We became entangled in a mesh of days like these, during which thingswere accomplished, but in which was no space for anything but thetasks imposed upon us. The men for the most part had little to say.
"Por Dios, eet is too mooch work!" sighed Perdosa once.
"Why don't you kick to the Old Man, then?" sneered Thrackles.
The silence that followed, and the sullenness with which Perdosareaddressed himself to his work, was significant enough of CaptainSelover's past relations with the men.
And how we did clean her! We stripped her of every stitch and sliveruntil she floated high, an empty hull, even her spars and runningrigging ashore. I understood now the crew's grumbling. We literallywent at her with a nail brush.
Captain Selover took charge of us when we had reached this period.He and the Nigger and Perdosa had long since finished the installationof the permanent camp. They had built us huts from the wreck, collectingstateroom doors for the sides, and hatches for the roofs, huge andsolid, with iron rings in them. The bronze and iron ventilationgratings to the doors gave us glimpses of the coast through fretwork;the rich inlaying of woods surrounded us. We set up on a solid rockthe galley stove--with its rails to hold the cooking pots fromupsetting, in a sea way. In it we burned the d閎ris of the wreck, allsorts of wood, some sweet and aromatic and spicy as an incensedcathedral. I have seen the Nigger boiling beans over a blaze of sandalwood fragrant as an Eastern shop.
First we scrubbed the Laughing Lass, then we painted her, andresized and tarred her standing rigging, resized and rove her runninggear, slushed her masts, finally careened her and scraped and paintedher below.
When we had quite finished, we had the anchor chain dealt out to usin fathoms, and scraped, pounded and polished that. These were indeeddays full of labour.
Being busy from morning until night we knew but little of what wasabout us. We saw the open sea and the waves tumbling over the reefoutside. We saw the headlands, and the bow of the bay and the surfwith its watching seals and the curve of yellow sands. We saw thesweep of coast and the downs and the strange huts we had built outof departed magnificence. And that was all; that constituted our world.
In the evening sometimes we lit a big bonfire, sailor fashion, justat the edge of the beach. There we sat at ease and smoked our pipesin silence, too tired to talk. Even Handy Solomon's song was still.Outside the circle of light were mysterious things--strange wavingsof white hands, bendings of figures, callings of voices, rustling offeet. We knew them for the surf and the wind in the grasses: but theywere not the less mysterious for that.
Logically Captain Selover and I should have passed most of ourevenings together. As a matter of fact we so spent very few. Earlyin the dusk the captain invariably rowed himself out to his belovedschooner. What he did there I do not know. We could see his light nowin one part of her, now in the other. The men claimed he was scrubbingher teeth. "Old Scrubs" they called him to his back: never CaptainSelover.
"He has to clean up after his own feet, he's so dirty," sagelyproffered Handy Solomon. And this was true.
The seaman's prophecy held good. Seven weeks held us at that infernaljob--seven weeks of solid, grinding work. The worst of it was, thatwe were kept at it so breathlessly, as though our very existence wereto depend on the headlong rush of our labour. And then we had fullyhalf the stores to put away again, and the other half to transportpainfully over the neck of land from the cove to the beach.
So accustomed had I become to the routine in which we were involved,so habituated to anticipating the coming day as exactly like the daythat had gone, that the completion of our job caught me quite bysurprise. I had thrown myself down by the fire prepared for the someold half hour of drowsy nicotine, to be followed by the accustomedheavy sleep, and the usual early rising to toil. The evening was warm;I half closed my eyes.
Handy Solomon was coming in last. Instead of dropping to his place,he straddled the fire, stretching his arms over his head. He let themfall with a sharp exhalation.
"'Lay aloft, lay aloft,' the jolly bos'n cried. Blow high, blow low, what care we! 'Look ahead, look astern, look a-windward, look a-lee.' Down on the coast of the high Barbare-e-e."
The effect was electrical. We all sprang to our feet and fell totalking at once.
"By God, we're through!" cried Pulz. "I'd clean forgot it!"
The Nigger piled on more wood. We drew closer about the fire. All theinterests in life, so long held in the background, leaped forward,eager for recognition. We spoke of trivialities almost for the firsttime since our landing, fused into a temporary but complete goodfellowship by the relief.
"Wonder how the old doctor is getting on?" ventured Thrackles, aftera while.
"The devil's a preacher! I wonder?" cried Handy Solomon.
"Let's make 'em a call," suggested Pulz.
"Don't believe they'd appreciate the compliment," I laughed. "Betterlet them make first call: they're the longer established." This waslost on them, of course. But we all felt kindly to one another thatevening.
I carried the glow of it with me over until next morning, and wastherefore somewhat dashed to meet Captain Selover, with clouded browsand an uncertain manner. He quite ignored my greeting.
"By God, Eagen," he squeaked, "can you think of anything more to bedone?"
I straightened my back and laughed.
"Haven't you worked us hard enough?" I inquired. "Unless you gild thecabins, I don't see what else there can be to do."
Captain Selover stared me over.
"And you a naval man!" he marvelled. "Don't you see that the onlything that keeps this crew from gettin' restless is keeping them busy?I've sweat a damn sight more with my brain than you have with yourback thinking up things to do. I can't see anything ahead, and thenwe'll have hell to pay. Oh, they're a sweet lot!"
I whistled and my crest fell. Here was a new point of view; and alsoa new Captain Ezra. Where was the confidence in the might of his twohands?
He seemed to read my thoughts, and went on.
"I don't feel sure here on this cussed land. It ain't like adeck where a man has some show. They can scatter. They can hide. Itain't right to put a man ashore alone with such a crew. I'm doing mybest, but it ain't goin' to be good enough. I wisht we were safe in'Frisco harbour----"
He would have maundered on, but I seized his arm and led him out ofpossible hearing of the men.
"Here, buck up!" I said to him sternly. "There's nothing to be scaredof. If it comes to a row, there's three of us and we've got guns. Wecould even sail the schooner at a pinch, and leave them here. You'vestood them off before."
"Not ashore," protested Captain Selover weakly.
"Well, they don't know that. For God's sake don't let them see you'velost your nerve this way." He did not even wince at the accusation."Put up a front."
He shook his head. The sand had completely run out of him. Yet I amconvinced that if he could have felt the heave and roll of the deckbeneath him, he would have faced three times the difficulties he nowfeared. However, I could see readily enough the wisdom of keeping themen at work.
"You can wreck the Golden Horn," I suggested. "I don't knowwhether there's anything left worth salvage; but it'll be somethingto do."
He clapped me on the shoulder.
"Good!" he cried, "I never thought of it."
"Another thing," said I, "you better give them a day off a week. Thatcan't hurt them and it'll waste just that much more time."
"All right," agreed Captain Selover.
"Another thing yet. You know I'm not lazy, so it ain't that I'm tryingto dodge work. But you'd better lay me off. It'll be so much more forthe others."
"That's true," said he.
I could not recognise the man for what I knew him to be. He groped,as one in the dark, or as a sea animal taken out of its element andplaced on the sands. Courage had given place to fear; decision towavering; and singleness of purpose to a divided counsel. He who hadso thoroughly dominated the entire ship, eagerly accepted advice ofme--a man without experience.
That evening I sat apart considerably disturbed. I felt that theground had dropped away beneath my feet. To be sure, everything wastranquil at present; but now I understood the source of thattranquillity and how soon it must fail. With opportunity would comemore scheming, more speculation, more cupidity. How was I to meet it,with none to back me but a scared man, an absorbed man, and anindifferent man?