XV
After seven cataleptic hours of unbroken sleep Blake awakened to find hisshoulder being prodded and shaken by the pale-eyed fourth engineer. Thestowaway's tired body, during that sleep, had soaked in renewed strengthas a squeezed sponge soaks up water. He could afford to blink withimpassive eyes up at the troubled face of the young man wearing theoil-stained cap.
"What's wrong?" he demanded, awakening to a luxurious comprehension ofwhere he was and what he had escaped. Then he sat up in the narrow berth,for it began to dawn on him that the engines of the _Trunella_ were notin motion. "Why aren't we under way?"
"They're having trouble up there, with the _Commandante_. We can't getoff inside of an hour--and anything's likely to happen in that time.That's why I've got to get you out of here!"
"Where'll you get me?" asked Blake. He was on his feet by this time,arraying himself in his wet and ragged clothing.
"That's what I've been talking over with the Chief," began the youngengineer. Blake wheeled about and fixed him with his eye.
"Did you let your Chief in on this?" he demanded, and he found it hard tokeep his anger in check.
"I had to let him in on it," complained the other. "If it came to a lineup or a searching party through here, they'd spot you first thing. You'renot a passenger; you're not signed; you're not anything!"
"Well, supposing I'm not?"
"Then they'd haul you back and give you a half year in that _Lazaretto_o' theirs!"
"Well, what do I have to do to keep from being hauled back?"
"You'll have to be one o' the workin' crew, until we get off. The Chiefsays that, and I think he's right!"
A vague foreboding filled Blake's soul. He had imagined that the ignominyand agony of physical labor was a thing of the past with him. And he wasstill sore in every sinew and muscle of his huge body.
"You don't mean stoke-hole work?" he demanded.
The fourth engineer continued to look worried.
"You don't happen to know anything about machinery, do you?" he began.
"Of course I do," retorted Blake, thinking gratefully of his early daysas a steamfitter.
"Then why couldn't I put you in a cap and jumper and work you in as oneof the greasers?"
"What do you mean by greasers?"
"That's an oiler in the engine-room. It--it may not be the coolest placeon earth, in this latitude, but it sure beats the stoke-hole!"
And it was in this way, thirty minutes later, that Blake became a greaserin the engine-room of the _Trunella_.
Already, far above him, he could hear the rattle and shriek ofwinch-engines and the far-off muffled roar of the whistle, rumbling itstriumph of returning life. Already the great propeller engines themselveshad been tested, after their weeks of idleness, languidly stretching andmoving like an awakening sleeper, slowly swinging their solemn tonsforward through their projected cycles and then as solemnly back again.
About this vast pyramid-shaped machinery, galleried like a Latinhouse-court, tremulous with the breath of life that sang and hissedthrough its veins, the new greaser could see his fellow workers withtheir dripping oil-cans, groping gallery by gallery up towards the squareof daylight that sifted down into the oil-scented pit where he stood. Hecould see his pale-eyed friend, the fourth engineer, spanner in hand,clinging to a moving network of steel like a spider to its tremulousweb--and in his breast, for the first time, a latent respect for thatyouth awakened. He could see other greasers wriggling about betweenintricate shafts and wheels, crawling cat-like along narrow steel ledges,mounting steep metal ladders guarded by hot hand rails, peering into oilboxes, "worrying" the vacuum pump, squatting and kneeling about ironfloors where oil-pits pooled and pump-valves clacked and electricmachines whirred and the antiphonal song of the mounting steam roaredlike music in the ears of the listening Blake, aching as he was for thefirst relieving throb of the screws. Stolidly and calmly the men abouthim worked, threatened by flailing steel, hissed at by venomouslyquiescent powers, beleaguered by mysteriously moving shafts, surroundedby countless valves and an inexplicable tangle of pipes, hemmed in by anincomprehensible labyrinth of copper wires, menaced by the veryshimmering joints and rods over which they could run such carelesslyaffectionate fingers.
Blake could see the assistant engineers, with their eyes on the pointersthat stood out against two white dials. He could see the Chief, the Chiefwhom he would so soon have to buy over and placate, moving about nervousand alert. Then he heard the tinkle of the telegraph bell, and therepeated gasp of energy as the engineers threw the levers. He could hearthe vicious hum of the reversing-engines, and then the great muffledcough of power as the ponderous valve-gear was thrown into position andthe vaster machinery above him was coerced into a motion that seemedlanguid yet relentless.
He could see the slow rise and fall of the great cranks. He could hearthe renewed signals and bells tinkles, the more insistent clack of pumps,the more resolute rise and fall of the ponderous cranks. And he knew thatthey were at last under way. He gave no thought to the heat of theoil-dripping pit in which he stood. He was oblivious of the periloussteel that whirred and throbbed about him. He was unconscious of the hothand rails and the greasy foot-ways and the mingling odor of steam andparching lubricant and ammonia-gas from a leaking "beef engine." He quiteforgot the fact that his _dungaree_ jumper was wet with sweat, that hiscap was already fouled with oil. All he knew was that he and Binhart wereat last under way.
He was filled with a new lightness of spirit as he felt the throb of"full speed ahead" shake the steel hull about which he so contentedlyclimbed and crawled. He found something fortifying in the thought thatthis vast hull was swinging out to her appointed sea lanes, that she wasnow intent on a way from which no caprice could turn her. There seemedsomething appeasingly ordered and implacable in the mere revolutions ofthe engines. And as those engines settled down to their labors theintent-eyed men about him fell almost as automatically into the routinesof toil as did the steel mechanism itself.
When at the end of the first four-houred watch a gong sounded and thenext crew filed cluttering in from the half-lighted between-deck gangwaysand came sliding down the polished steel stair rails, Blake felt that hisgreatest danger was over.
There would still be an occasional palm to grease, he told himself, anoccasional bit of pad money to be paid out. But he could meet thoseemergencies with the fortitude of a man already inured to the exactionsof venal accomplices.
Then a new discovery came to him. It came as he approached the chiefengineer, with the object in view of throwing a little light on hispresence there. And as he looked into that officer's coldly indignant eyehe awakened to the fact that he was no longer on land, but afloat on atiny world with an autocracy and an authority of its own. He was in atiny world, he saw, where his career and his traditions were not to bereckoned with, where he ranked no higher than conch-niggers andbeach-combers and _cargadores_. He was a _dungaree_-clad greaser in anengine-room, and he was promptly ordered back with the rest of his crew.He was not even allowed to talk.
When his watch came round he went on duty again. He saw the futility ofrevolt, until the time was ripe. He went through his appointed tasks withthe solemn precision of an apprentice. He did what he was commanded todo. Yet sometimes the heat would grow so intense that the great sweatingbody would have to shamble to a ventilator and there drink in long draftsof the cooler air. The pressure of invisible hoops about the greatheaving chest would then release itself, the haggard face would regainsome touch of color, and the new greaser would go back to his work again.One or two of the more observant toilers about him, experienced inengine-room life, marveled at the newcomer and the sense of mystery whichhung over him. One or two of them fell to wondering what inner spiritcould stay him through those four-houred ordeals of heat and labor.
Yet they looked after him with even more inquisitive eyes when, on thesecond day out, he was peremptorily summoned to the Captain's room. Whattook place in that
room no one in the ship ever actually knew.
But the large-bodied stowaway returned below-decks, white of face andgrim of jaw. He went back to his work in silence, in dogged and unbrokensilence which those about him knew enough to respect.
It was whispered about, it is true, that among other things a large andugly-looking revolver had been taken from his clothing, and that he hadbeen denied the use of the ship's wireless service. A steward outside theCaptain's door, it was also whispered, had over-heard the shipmaster'sangry threat to put the stowaway in irons for the rest of the voyage andreturn him to the Ecuadorean authorities. It was rumored, too, that latein the afternoon of the same day, when the new greaser had complained offaintness and was seeking a breath of fresh air at the foot of a midshipsdeck-ladder, he had chanced to turn and look up at a man standing on thepromenade deck above him.
The two men stood staring at each other for several moments, and for allthe balmy air about him the great body of the stranger just up from theengine-room had shivered and shaken, as though with a malarial chill.
What it meant, no one quite knew. Nor could anything be added to thatrumor, beyond the fact that the first-class passenger, who was known tobe a doctor and who had stared so intently down at the quiet-eyedgreaser, had turned the color of ashes and without a word had slippedaway. And the bewilderment of the entire situation was further increasedwhen the _Trunella_ swung in at Callao and the large-bodied man ofmystery was peremptorily and none too gently put ashore. It was noted,however, that the first-class passenger who had stared down at him fromthe promenade-deck remained aboard the vessel as she started southwardagain. It was further remarked that he seemed more at ease when Callaowas left well behind, although he sat smoking side by side with theoperator in the wireless room until the _Trunella_ had steamed many milessouthward on her long journey towards the Straits of Magellan.