CHAPTER XIII
Captain Doane worked hard, pursuing the sun in its daily course throughthe sky, by the equation of time correcting its aberrations due to theearth's swinging around the great circle of its orbit, and chartingSumner lines innumerable, working assumed latitudes for position untilhis head grew dizzy.
Simon Nishikanta sneered openly at what he considered the captain'sinefficient navigation, and continued to paint water-colours when he wasserene, and to shoot at whales, sea-birds, and all things hurtable whenhe was downhearted and sea-sore with disappointment at not sighting theLion's Head peak of the Ancient Mariner's treasure island.
"I'll show I ain't a pincher," Nishikanta announced one day, after havingbroiled at the mast-head for five hours of sea-searching. "CaptainDoane, how much could we have bought extra chronometers for in SanFrancisco--good second-hand ones, I mean?"
"Say a hundred dollars," the captain answered.
"Very well. And this ain't a piker's proposition. The cost of such achronometer would have been divided between the three of us. I stand forits total cost. You just tell the sailors that I, Simon Nishikanta, willpay one hundred dollars gold money for the first one that sights land onMr. Greenleaf's latitude and longitude."
But the sailors who swarmed the mast-heads were doomed to disappointment,in that for only two days did they have opportunity to stare the oceansurface for the reward. Nor was this due entirely to Dag Daughtry,despite the fact that his own intention and act would have beensufficient to spoil their chance for longer staring.
Down in the lazarette, under the main-cabin floor, it chanced that hetook toll of the cases of beer which had been shipped for his especialbenefit. He counted the cases, doubted the verdict of his senses,lighted more matches, counted again, then vainly searched the entirelazarette in the hope of finding more cases of beer stored elsewhere.
He sat down under the trap door of the main-cabin floor and thought for asolid hour. It was the Jew again, he concluded--the Jew who had beenwilling to equip the _Mary Turner_ with two chronometers, but not withthree; the Jew who had ratified the agreement of a sufficient supply topermit Daughtry his daily six quarts. Once again the steward counted thecases to make sure. There were three. And since each case contained twodozen quarts, and since his whack each day was half a dozen quarts, itwas patent that, the supply that stared him in the face would last himonly twelve days. And twelve days were none too long to sail from thisunidentifiable naked sea-stretch to the nearest possible port where beercould be purchased.
The steward, once his mind was made up, wasted no time. The clock markeda quarter before twelve when he climbed up out of the lazarette, replacedthe trapdoor, and hurried to set the table. He served the companythrough the noon meal, although it was all he could do to refrain fromcapsizing the big tureen of split-pea soup over the head of SimonNishikanta. What did effectually withstrain him was the knowledge of theact which in the lazarette he had already determined to perform thatafternoon down in the main hold where the water-casks were stored.
At three o'clock, while the Ancient Mariner supposedly drowned in hisroom, and while Captain Doane, Grimshaw, and half the watch on deckclustered at the mast-heads to try to raise the Lion's Head from out thesapphire sea, Dag Daughtry dropped down the ladder of the open hatchwayinto the main hold. Here, in long tiers, with alleyways between, thewater-casks were chocked safely on their sides.
From inside his shirt the steward drew a brace, and to it fitted a half-inch bit from his hip-pocket. On his knees, he bored through the head ofthe first cask until the water rushed out upon the deck and flowed downinto the bilge. He worked quickly, boring cask after cask down thealleyway that led to deeper twilight. When he had reached the end of thefirst row of casks he paused a moment to listen to the gurglings of themany half-inch streams running to waste. His quick ears caught a similargurgling from the right in the direction of the next alleyway. Listeningclosely, he could have sworn he heard the sounds of a bit biting intohard wood.
A minute later, his own brace and bit carefully secreted, his hand wasdescending on the shoulder of a man he could not recognize in the gloom,but who, on his knees and wheezing, was steadily boring into the head ofa cask. The culprit made no effort to escape, and when Daughtry struck amatch he gazed down into the upturned face of the Ancient Mariner.
"My word!" the steward muttered his amazement softly. "What in hell areyou running water out for?"
He could feel the old man's form trembling with violent nervousness, andhis own heart smote him for gentleness.
"It's all right," he whispered. "Don't mind me. How many have youbored?"
"All in this tier," came the whispered answer. "You will not inform onme to the . . . the others?"
"Inform?" Daughtry laughed softly. "I don't mind telling you that we'replaying the same game, though I don't know why you should play it. I'vejust finished boring all of the starboard row. Now I tell you, sir, youskin out right now, quietly, while the goin' is good. Everybody's aloft,and you won't be noticed. I'll go ahead and finish this job . . . allbut enough water to last us say a dozen days."
"I should like to talk with you . . . to explain matters," the AncientMariner whispered.
"Sure, sir, an' I don't mind sayin', sir, that I'm just plain mad curiousto hear. I'll join you down in the cabin, say in ten minutes, and we canhave a real gam. But anyway, whatever your game is, I'm with you.Because it happens to be my game to get quick into port, and because,sir, I have a great liking and respect for you. Now shoot along. I'llbe with you inside ten minutes."
"I like you, steward, very much," the old man quavered.
"And I like you, sir--and a damn sight more than them money-sharks aft.But we'll just postpone this. You beat it out of here, while I finishscuppering the rest of the water."
A quarter of an hour later, with the three money-sharks still at the mast-heads, Charles Stough Greenleaf was seated in the cabin and sipping ahighball, and Dag Daughtry was standing across the table from him,drinking directly from a quart bottle of beer.
"Maybe you haven't guessed it," the Ancient Mariner said; "but this is myfourth voyage after this treasure."
"You mean . . . ?" Daughtry asked.
"Just that. There isn't any treasure. There never was one--any morethan the Lion's Head, the longboat, or the bearings unnamable."'
Daughtry rumpled his grizzled thatch of hair in his perplexity, as headmitted:
"Well, you got me, sir. You sure got me to believin' in that treasure."
"And I acknowledge, steward, that I am pleased to hear it. It shows thatI have not lost my cunning when I can deceive a man like you. It is easyto deceive men whose souls know only money. But you are different. Youdon't live and breathe for money. I've watched you with your dog. I'vewatched you with your nigger boy. I've watched you with your beer. Andjust because your heart isn't set on a great buried treasure of gold, youare harder to deceive. Those whose hearts are set, are mostastonishingly easy to fool. They are of cheap kidney. Offer them aproposition of one hundred dollars for one, and they are like hungry pikesnapping at the bait. Offer a thousand dollars for one, or ten thousandfor one, and they become sheer lunatic. I am an old man, a very old man.I like to live until I die--I mean, to live decently, comfortably,respectably."
"And you like the voyages long? I begin to see, sir. Just as they'regetting near to where the treasure ain't, a little accident like the lossof their water-supply sends them into port and out again to start huntingall over."
The Ancient Mariner nodded, and his sun-washed eyes twinkled.
"There was the _Emma Louisa_. I kept her on the long voyage overeighteen months with water accidents and similar accidents. And,besides, they kept me in one of the best hotels in New Orleans for overfour months before the voyage began, and advanced to me handsomely, yes,bravely, handsomely."
"But tell me more, sir; I am most interested," Dag Daughtry concluded hissimple matter of the beer. "It'
s a good game. I might learn it for myold age, though I give you my word, sir, I won't butt in on your game. Iwouldn't tackle it until you are gone, sir, good game that it is."
"First of all, you must pick out men with money--with plenty of money, sothat any loss will not hurt them. Also, they are easier to interest--"
"Because they are more hoggish," the steward interrupted. "The moremoney they've got the more they want."
"Precisely," the Ancient Mariner continued. "And, at least, they arerepaid. Such sea-voyages are excellent for their health. After all, Ido them neither hurt nor harm, but only good, and add to their health."
"But them scars--that gouge out of your face--all them fingers missing onyour hand? You never got them in the fight in the longboat when thebo's'n carved you up. Then where in Sam Hill did you get the them? Waita minute, sir. Let me fill your glass first." And with a fresh-brimmedglass, Charles Stough Greanleaf narrated the history of his scars.
"First, you must know, steward, that I am--well, a gentleman. My namehas its place in the pages of the history of the United States, even backbefore the time when they were the United States. I graduated second inmy class in a university that it is not necessary to name. For thatmatter, the name I am known by is not my name. I carefully compounded itout of names of other families. I have had misfortunes. I trod thequarter-deck when I was a young man, though never the deck of the _WideAwake_, which is the ship of my fancy--and of my livelihood in theselatter days.
"The scars you asked about, and the missing fingers? Thus it chanced. Itwas the morning, at late getting-up times in a Pullman, when the accidenthappened. The car being crowded, I had been forced to accept an upperberth. It was only the other day. A few years ago. I was an old manthen. We were coming up from Florida. It was a collision on a hightrestle. The train crumpled up, and some of the cars fell over sidewaysand fell off, ninety feet into the bottom of a dry creek. It was dry,though there was a pool of water just ten feet in diameter and eighteeninches deep. All the rest was dry boulders, and I bull's-eyed that pool.
"This is the way it was. I had just got on my shoes and pants and shirt,and had started to get out of the bunk. There I was, sitting on the edgeof the bunk, my legs dangling down, when the locomotives came together.The berths, upper and lower, on the opposite side had already been madeup by the porter.
"And there I was, sitting, legs dangling, not knowing where I was, on atrestle or a flat, when the thing happened. I just naturally left thatupper berth, soared like a bird across the aisle, went through the glassof the window on the opposite side clean head-first, turned over and overthrough the ninety feet of fall more times than I like to remember, andby some sort of miracle was mostly flat-out in the air when I bull's-eyedthat pool of water. It was only eighteen inches deep. But I hit itflat, and I hit it so hard that it must have cushioned me. I was theonly survivor of my car. It struck forty feet away from me, off to theside. And they took only the dead out of it. When they took me out ofthe pool I wasn't dead by any means. And when the surgeons got done withme, there were the fingers gone from my hand, that scar down the side ofmy face . . . and, though you'd never guess it, I've been three ribsshort of the regular complement ever since.
"Oh, I had no complaint coming. Think of the others in that car--alldead. Unfortunately, I was riding on a pass, and so could not sue therailroad company. But here I am, the only man who ever dived ninety feetinto eighteen inches of water and lived to tell the tale.--Steward, ifyou don't mind replenishing my glass . . . "
Dag Daughtry complied and in his excitement of interest pulled off thetop of another quart of beer for himself.
"Go on, go on, sir," he murmured huskily, wiping his lips, "and thetreasure-hunting graft. I'm straight dying to hear. Sir, I salute you."
"I may say, steward," the Ancient Mariner resumed, "that I was born witha silver spoon that melted in my mouth and left me a proper prodigal son.Also, that I was born with a backbone of pride that would not melt. Notfor a paltry railroad accident, but for things long before as well asafter, my family let me die, and I . . . I let it live. That is thestory. I let my family live. Furthermore, it was not my family's fault.I never whimpered. I never let on. I melted the last of my silverspoon--South Sea cotton, an' it please you, cacao in Tonga, rubber andmahogany in Yucatan. And do you know, at the end, I slept in Bowerylodging-houses and ate scrapple in East-Side feeding-dens, and, on morethan one occasion, stood in the bread-line at midnight and ponderedwhether or not I should faint before I fed."
"And you never squealed to your family," Dag Daughtry murmured admiringlyin the pause.
The Ancient Mariner straightened up his shoulders, threw his head back,then bowed it and repeated, "No, I never squealed. I went into the poor-house, or the county poor-farm as they call it. I lived sordidly. Ilived like a beast. For six months I lived like a beast, and then I sawmy way out. I set about building the _Wide Awake_. I built her plank byplank, and copper-fastened her, selected her masts and every timber ofher, and personally signed on her full ship's complement fore-and-aft,and outfitted her amongst the Jews, and sailed with her to the South Seasand the treasure buried a fathom under the sand.
"You see," he explained, "all this I did in my mind, for all the time Iwas a hostage in the poor-farm of broken men."
The Ancient Mariner's face grew suddenly bleak and fierce, and his righthand flashed out to Daughtry's wrist, prisoning it in withered fingers ofsteel.
"It was a long, hard way to get out of the poor-farm and finance mymiserable little, pitiful little, adventure of the _Wide Awake_. Do youknow that I worked in the poor-farm laundry for two years, for one dollarand a half a week, with my one available hand and what little I could dowith the other, sorting dirty clothes and folding sheets and pillow-slipsuntil I thought a thousand times my poor old back would break in two, anduntil I knew a million times the location in my chest of every fractionof an inch of my missing ribs."
"You are a young man yet--"
Daughtry grinned denial as he rubbed his grizzled mat of hair.
"You are a young man yet, steward," the Ancient Mariner insisted with ashow of irritation. "You have never been shut out from life. In thepoor-farm one is shut out from life. There is no respect--no, not forage alone, but for human life in the poor-house. How shall I say it? Oneis not dead. Nor is one alive. One is what once was alive and is inprocess of becoming dead. Lepers are treated that way. So are theinsane. I know it. When I was young and on the sea, abrother-lieutenant went mad. Sometimes he was violent, and we struggledwith him, twisting his arms, bruising his flesh, tying him helpless whilewe sat and panted on him that he might not do harm to us, himself, or theship. And he, who still lived, died to us. Don't you understand? Hewas no longer of us, like us. He was something other. That isit--_other_. And so, in the poor-farm, we, who are yet unburied, are_other_. You have heard me chatter about the hell of the longboat. Thatis a pleasant diversion in life compared with the poor-farm. The food,the filth, the abuse, the bullying, the--the sheer animalness of it!
"For two years I worked for a dollar and a half a week in the laundry.And imagine me, who had melted a silver spoon in my mouth--a sizablesilver spoon steward--imagine me, my old sore bones, my old bellyreminiscent of youth's delights, my old palate ticklish yet and not allwithered of the deviltries of taste learned in younger days--as I say,steward, imagine me, who had ever been free-handed, lavish, saving thatdollar and a half intact like a miser, never spending a penny of it ontobacco, never mitigating by purchase of any little delicacy the sadcondition of my stomach that protested against the harshness andindigestibility of our poor fare. I cadged tobacco, poor cheap tobacco,from poor doddering old chaps trembling on the edge of dissolution. Ay,and when Samuel Merrivale I found dead in the morning, next cot to mine,I first rummaged his poor old trousers' pocket for the half-plug oftobacco I knew was the total estate he left, then announced the news.
"Oh, steward, I was c
areful of that dollar and a half. Don't you see?--Iwas a prisoner sawing my way out with a tiny steel saw. And I sawedout!" His voice rose in a shrill cackle of triumph. "Steward, I sawedout!"
Dag Daughtry held forth and up his beer-bottle as he said gravely andsincerely:
"Sir, I salute you."
"And I thank you, sir--you understand," the Ancient Mariner replied withsimple dignity to the toast, touching his glass to the bottle anddrinking with the steward eyes to eyes.
"I should have had one hundred and fifty-six dollars when I left the poor-farm," the ancient one continued. "But there were the two weeks I lost,with influenza, and the one week from a confounded pleurisy, so that Iemerged from that place of the living dead with but one hundred and fifty-one dollars and fifty cents."
"I see, sir," Daughtry interrupted with honest admiration. "The tiny sawhad become a crowbar, and with it you were going back to break into lifeagain."
All the scarred face and washed eyes of Charles Stough Greenleaf beamedas he held his glass up.
"Steward, I salute you. You understand. And you have said it well. Iwas going back to break into the house of life. It was a crowbar, thatpitiful sum of money accumulated by two years of crucifixion. Think ofit! A sum that in the days ere the silver spoon had melted, I staked incareless moods of an instant on a turn of the cards. But as you say, aburglar, I came back to break into life, and I came to Boston. You havea fine turn for a figure of speech, steward, and I salute you."
Again bottle and glass tinkled together, and both men drank eyes to eyesand each was aware that the eyes he gazed into were honest andunderstanding.
"But it was a thin crowbar, steward. I dared not put my weight on it fora proper pry. I took a room in a small but respectable hotel, Europeanplan. It was in Boston, I think I said. Oh, how careful I was of mycrowbar! I scarcely ate enough to keep my frame inhabited. But I boughtdrinks for others, most carefully selected--bought drinks with an air ofprosperity that was as a credential to my story; and in my cups (myapparent cups, steward), spun an old man's yarn of the _Wide Awake_, thelongboat, the bearings unnamable, and the treasure under the sand.--Afathom under the sand; that was literary; it was psychological; itsmacked of the salt sea, and daring rovers, and the loot of the SpanishMain.
"You have noticed this nugget I wear on my watch-chain, steward? I couldnot afford it at that time, but I talked golden instead, California gold,nuggets and nuggets, oodles and oodles, from the diggings of forty-nineand fifty. That was literary. That was colour. Later, after my firstvoyage out of Boston I was financially able to buy a nugget. It was somuch bait to which men rose like fishes. And like fishes they nibbled.These rings, also--bait. You never see such rings now. After I got infunds, I purchased them, too. Take this nugget: I am talking. I toywith it absently as I am telling of the great gold treasure we buriedunder the sand. Suddenly the nugget flashes fresh recollection into mymind. I speak of the longboat, of our thirst and hunger, and of thethird officer, the fair lad with cheeks virgin of the razor, and that heit was who used it as a sinker when we strove to catch fish.
"But back in Boston. Yarns and yarns, when seemingly I was gone indrink, I told my apparent cronies--men whom I despised, stupid dolts ofcreatures that they were. But the word spread, until one day, a youngman, a reporter, tried to interview me about the treasure and the _WideAwake_. I was indignant, angry.--Oh, softly, steward, softly; in myheart was great joy as I denied that young reporter, knowing that from mycronies he already had a sufficiency of the details.
"And the morning paper gave two whole columns and headlines to the tale.I began to have callers. I studied them out well. Many were foradventuring after the treasure who themselves had no money. I baffledand avoided them, and waited on, eating even less as my little capitaldwindled away.
"And then he came, my gay young doctor--doctor of philosophy he was, forhe was very wealthy. My heart sang when I saw him. But twenty-eightdollars remained to me--after it was gone, the poor-house, or death. Ihad already resolved upon death as my choice rather than go back to be ofthat dolorous company, the living dead of the poor-farm. But I did notgo back, nor did I die. The gay young doctor's blood ran warm at thoughtof the South Seas, and in his nostrils I distilled all the scents of theflower-drenched air of that far-off land, and in his eyes I builded himthe fairy visions of the tradewind clouds, the monsoon skies, the palmisles and the coral seas.
"He was a gay, mad young dog, grandly careless of his largess, fearlessas a lion's whelp, lithe and beautiful as a leopard, and mad, a triflemad of the deviltries and whimsies that tickled in that fine brain ofhis. Look you, steward. Before we sailed in the _Gloucester_ fishing-schooner, purchased by the doctor, and that was like a yacht and showedher heels to most yachts, he had me to his house to advise about personalequipment. We were overhauling in a gear-room, when suddenly he spoke:
"'I wonder how my lady will take my long absence. What say you? Shallshe go along?'
"And I had not known that he had any wife or lady. And I looked mysurprise and incredulity.
"'Just that you do not believe I shall take her on the cruise,' helaughed, wickedly, madly, in my astonished face. 'Come, you shall meether.'
"Straight to his bedroom and his bed he led me, and, turning down thecovers, showed there to me, asleep as she had slept for many a thousandyears, the mummy of a slender Egyptian maid.
"And she sailed with us on the long vain voyage to the South Seas andback again, and, steward, on my honour, I grew quite fond of the dearmaid myself."
The Ancient Mariner gazed dreamily into his glass, and Dag Daughtry tookadvantage of the pause to ask:
"But the young doctor? How did he take the failure to find thetreasure?"
The Ancient Mariner's face lighted with joy.
"He called me a delectable old fraud, with his arm on my shoulder whilehe did it. Why, steward, I had come to love that young man like asplendid son. And with his arm on my shoulder, and I know there was morethan mere kindness in it, he told me we had barely reached the RiverPlate when he discovered me. With laughter, and with more than one slapof his hand on my shoulder that was more caress than jollity, he pointedout the discrepancies in my tale (which I have since amended, steward,thanks to him, and amended well), and told me that the voyage had been agrand success, making him eternally my debtor.
"What could I do? I told him the truth. To him even did I tell myfamily name, and the shame I had saved it from by forswearing it.
"He put his arm on my shoulder, I tell you, and . . . "
The Ancient Mariner ceased talking because of a huskiness in his throat,and a moisture from his eyes trickled down both cheeks.
Dag Daughtry pledged him silently, and in the draught from his glass herecovered himself.
"He told me that I should come and live with him, and, to his greatlonely house he took me the very day we landed in Boston. Also, he toldme he would make arrangements with his lawyers--the idea tickled hisfancy--'I shall adopt you,' he said. 'I shall adopt you along withIsthar'--Isthar was the little maid's name, the little mummy's name.
"Here was I, back in life, steward, and legally to be adopted. But lifeis a fond betrayer. Eighteen hours afterward, in the morning, we foundhim dead in his bed, the little mummy maid beside him. Heart-failure,the burst of some blood-vessel in the brain--I never learned.
"I prayed and pleaded with them for the pair to be buried together. Butthey were a hard, cold, New England lot, his cousins and his aunts, andthey presented Isthar to the museum, and me they gave a week to be quitof the house. I left in an hour, and they searched my small baggagebefore they would let me depart.
"I went to New York. It was the same game there, only that I had moremoney and could play it properly. It was the same in New Orleans, inGalveston. I came to California. This is my fifth voyage. I had a hardtime getting these three interested, and spent all my little store ofmoney before they signed the agreement. They were very mean.
Advanceany money to me! The very idea of it was preposterous. Though I bidedmy time, ran up a comfortable hotel bill, and, at the very last, orderedmy own generous assortment of liquors and cigars and charged the bill tothe schooner. Such a to-do! All three of them raged and all but toretheir hair . . . and mime. They said it could not be. I fell promptlysick. I told them they got on my nerves and made me sick. The more theyraged, the sicker I got. Then they gave in. As promptly I grew better.And here we are, out of water and heading soon most likely for theMarquesas to fill our barrels. Then they will return and try for itagain!"
"You think so, sir?"
"I shall remember even more important data, steward," the Ancient Marinersmiled. "Without doubt they will return. Oh, I know them well. Theyare meagre, narrow, grasping fools."
"Fools! all fools! a ship of fools!" Dag Daughtry exulted; repeating whathe had expressed in the hold, as he bored the last barrel, listened tothe good water gurgling away into the bilge, and chuckled over hisdiscovery of the Ancient Mariner on the same lay as his own.