Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Mary Meehan and the Online DistributedProofreading Team.
THE DEVIL'S ADMIRAL
An Adventure Story
BY FREDERICK FERDINAND MOORE
1913
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I. Missionary and Red-Headed Beggar II. Red-Headed Beggar and Missionary III. The Spy and the Dead Boatswain IV. I Go Aboard the _Kut Sang_ V. The Dead Man in the Passage VI. The Red-Headed Man Makes an Accusation VII. I Turn Spy Myself VIII. Mr. Harris Has a Few Ideas IX. A Fight in the Dark X. The Devil's Admiral XI. A Council of War XII. The Battle on the Bridge XIII. We Plan an Expedition XIV. The Pursuit Ashore XV. Two Thieves and a Fight XVI. The Gold and the Pirates XVII. The Art of ThirkleXVIII. Big Stakes in a Big Game XIX. "One Man Less in the Forecastle Mess" XX. The Last
CHAPTER I
MISSIONARY AND RED-HEADED BEGGAR
Captain Riggs had a trunk full of old logbooks, and he said any of themwould make a better story than the _Kut Sang_. The truth of it was, hedidn't want me to write this story. There were things he didn't wish tosee in type, perhaps because he feared to read about himself and what hadhappened in the old steamer in the China Sea.
"Folks don't care nothing about cargo-boats," he would say, taking hispipe out of his mouth and shaking his head gravely, whenever I hintedthat I would like to tell of our adventure of the _Kut Sang_. "They wantyarns of them floating hotels called liners, with palm-gardens in 'em andbands playing at their meals and games and so on going from eight bellsto the bos'n's watch.
"It was mostly fighting in the _Kut Sang_, and the mess you and me andpoor Harris and the black boy there got into wouldn't be just the quietsort of reading folks want these days. It was all over in a night and aday, anyway--look at them Northern Spy apples, Mr. Trenholm!"
He wanted to forget the _Kut Sang_ and the awful night we had in her. Heimagined he didn't figure to advantage in the story, and he winced whenI mentioned certain events, although I always insisted that he was thebravest man among us, having a better realization of the odds against us.Those who have faced danger know it takes a brave man to admit that he isbeaten, and still keep up the fight.
We all have better memories for our brave moments than for the fear whichthreatened for a time to prove us cowards. The man who has faced deathand says he was not afraid is either a fool or a liar; and, if only aliar, still a fool for telling himself that which he knows to be a lie.The bravery of the seaman is that he fears the sea and knows itsruthlessness and its ultimate victory, and accepts it as a part of hisday's work. This is a sea-story.
Captain Riggs had log-book stories that were good, and they might haveserved him for a volume of marine memoirs. But I was with him whenwe freighted the _Kut Sang_ with adventure and sailed out of Manila, sohis musty records of rescues and wrecks lacked life for me. In the oldlogbooks I found no men to compare with the Rev. Luther Meeker; orPetrak, the little red-headed beggar; or Long Jim or Buckrow or Thirkle.I never found in their pages a cabin-boy like Rajah the Malay, struttingabout with a long kris stuck in the folds of his scarlet _sarong_, or amate whose truculence equalled the chronic ill-humour of Harris, wholearned his seamanship as a fisherman on the Newfoundland Banks. And inall his log-books I never found another Devil's Admiral!
Riggs is dead, and I can tell the story in my own way; for tell it Imust, and the manuscript will be a comfort to me when I am old and mymemory and imagination begin to fail. Not that I ever expect to forget,because that would be a calamity; but I want to put down the events ofthe day and night in the _Kut Sang_ while they are fresh in my mind.
How well I can see in a mental vision the whole murderous plot workedout! Certain parts of it flash on me at off moments, while I am reading abook or watching a play or talking with a friend, and every trivialdetail comes out as clearly as if it were all being done over again in amotion picture. The night gloom in the hall brings back to me the'tween-decks of the old tub of a boat; the green-plush seats of asleeping-car remind me of the _Kut Sang's_ dining-saloon, and even abonfire in an adjacent yard recalls the odour of burned rice on thegalley fire left by the panic-stricken Chinese cook.
I know the very smell of the _Kut Sang_. I caught it last week passing aship-chandler's shop, and it set my veins throbbing again with the senseof conflict, and I caught myself tensing my muscles for a death grapple.To me the _Kut Sang_ is a personality, a sentient being, with her ownsoul and moods and temper, audaciously tossing her bows at thethreatening seas rising to meet her. She is my sea-ghost, and as much acharacter to me as Riggs or Thirkle or Dago Red.
The deep, bright red band on her funnel gave her a touch of coquetry, butshe had the drabness of senility; she was worn out, and working, whenshe should have gone to the junk pile years before. But her veryantiquity charmed me, for her scars and wrinkles told of hard service inthe China Sea; and there was an air of comfort about her, such asone finds in an ancient house that has sheltered several generations.
Precious little comfort I had in her, though, which is why I rememberher so well, and why I never shall forget her. If she had made Hong-Kongin five days, her name would be lost in the memory of countless othersteamers, and there would be no tale to tell. But now she is the_Kut Sang_, and every time I whisper the two words to myself I live oncemore aboard her.
Rajah is with me--inherited, I might say, from Captain Riggs. Perhaps hekeeps my memory keen on the old days, for how could I forget with theblack boy stalking about the house--half the time in his bare feet andhis native costume, which I rather encourage--for his _sarong_ matchesthe curtains of my den and adds a bit of colour to my colourlesssurroundings.
I am quite sure that if Captain Riggs were still alive he would agreethat the story should begin with my first sight of the missionary and thelittle red-headed man, so I will launch the narrative with an account ofhow I first met the Rev. Luther Meeker.
He was in the midst of a litter of nondescript baggage on the Manila molewhen I came ashore from a rice-boat that had brought me across theChina Sea from Saigon. The first glance marked him as a missionary, forhe wore a huge crucifix cut out of pink shell, and as he hobbled about onthe embankment it bobbed at the end of a black cord hung from his neck.
Quaint and queer he was, even for the Orient, where queerness in men andthings is commonplace and accepted as a part of the East's inseparablesense of mystery. With his big goggles of smoked glass he reminded one ofsome sea-monster, an illusion dispelled by his battered pith helmet withits faded sky-blue _pugri_ bound round its crown, the frayed ends fallingover his shoulders and flapping in the breeze.
He was a thin old man, clad in duck, turning yellow with age. When hethrew the helmet back it exposed a wrinkled brow and a baldish head,except for a few wisps of hair at the temples. He appeared to be of greatage--a fossil, an animated mummy, a relic from an ancient graveyard;and the stoop of his lean shoulders accentuated these impressions. It wasplain that the tropics were fast making an end of him.
He was whining querulously as I stepped ashore, and the first words Iheard him say were:
"An organ! An organ! An organ in a cedarwood box! An organ in a cedarwoodbox, and the sign of the cross on the ends! Oh, why do you try my soul?Such stupidity! Such awful stupidity!"
The native porters were grinning at him as they simulated a franticsearch for his organ in a cedarwood box, but they probably knew all thetime where it was. He was surrounded by baskets and chests; and, if thecrucifix were not enough to indicate his profession, black lettering onhis possessions advertised him as "The Rev. Luther Meeker, LondonEvangelical Society." The multiplicity of labels proclai
med him atraveller known from Colombo to Vladivostok, and he must have beenwandering over Asia for years, as his luggage was as ancient as himself.
Fighting my way out of the multitude on the river-bank, I gained thecable office near the customhouse and reported myself in Manila, boughtall the newspapers I could to learn how the war was going in Manchuria,and to anticipate if possible where I might be ordered next.
I revelled in the noise and crowds as only one can after a week at sea.While I was on the way from Saigon the Russian armies might have beenbeaten or the Japanese fleet destroyed. There might be orders sending meanywhere, but I hoped that I would leave Manila for the Strait of Malaccato meet the Baltic fleet. What I feared most was the end of the war, fora war-correspondent without a war is deprived of his profession. I wasyoung and ambitious, then, and seeking a journalistic reputation at thecable's mouth.
It happened that I had allowed myself to heed the glib tongue of ahotel-runner before I left the rice-steamer, and he had commandeered mybag and taken it to the Oriente Hotel, of which I knew nothing exceptthat it was in the walled city and across the river from the cableoffice. To recapture the bag and my clean linen I would have to take aninstrument of torture known as a _carromatta_ and drive across the Bridgeof Spain.
I could cross the river in a small boat with a Filipino pirate, and go ona hunt for a conveyance on the other side; but thought it better to riskbeing shaken to death than drowned in the dirty Pasig, so I hailed a_cochero_. The villain demanded a double rate, and, while we werehaggling, a bus of the Oriente drew in sight and I caught it as it wasspinning up Calle San Fernando.
When I crawled into the bus I wished that I had struck a bargain with thethief of a _cochero_, for I found myself in a seat beside the whiningmissionary. He prayed for his bones over the rough places, and for hislife, when the driver took a corner recklessly, and made us all veryweary with his eternal complaining. That was not the worst of it--hetried to strike up an acquaintance with me.
There was a letter in my coat-pocket which had been given to me in Saigonto deliver to the Russian consul in Manila. It was an errand for thecable-operator there, who had done me favours, and I was to leave it atthe Hong-Kong-Shanghai Bank for the consul, who would call for it. Thatbank carried an expense account for me, so the delivery of the letterwas of no trouble. The envelope was long and official-looking, and itfell to the floor of the bus as I clambered in.
Meeker picked it up and handed it to me, but for the instant he held ithe read the address:
Russian Consul,Care Hong-Kong-Shanghai Bank,ManilaCourtesy Mr. James A. Trenholm,Amalgamated Press
"My dear sir," said Meeker, "you have dropped a document--allow me."
"Thank you," I replied, and took the letter, which was quite bulky andsealed with a splotch of black wax imprinted with a coat of arms or acrest, or some such insignia. I fear I betrayed my irritation overMeeker's reading the address.
"No offence, I trust, my dear sir," he said, mild surprise in his tone.
"None whatever," I snapped back; but our companions in the bus smiled andwinked at me openly, as if they appreciated my cold manner toward themissionary.
He said no more to me, but remarked to no one in particular that "anaustere manner is a poor passport in this country," which implied that Iwas new to the East, and would learn better if I stayed long enough. Iignored the remark, somewhat pleased that I had rebuffed him, for I wellknew he would talk me into a fever if I did not keep him at a distance;and, furthermore, I did not relish the idea of having him intrude upon meat the hotel. My dislike for him was not because he was a missionary, butbecause he was a common enough type of bore. He was over suave, and hispeevishness jarred my none too steady nerves.
The bus was not a pleasant place for me after that, so I dropped off inPlaza Moraga, when I observed the signboard of the very bank mentioned. Icashed a draft and handed the letter to the clerk at the barred window.
"Oh, yes, we have been waiting for that!" he said as he took theenvelope. "Mr. Trego! Here are your papers for the consul," he called toa man somewhere behind the frosted glass wall. "We appreciate yourkindness very much, Mr. Trenholm."
It was then that I first saw the little red-headed man. He was looking inat the door, but scurried away when the Sikh guard inside moved towardhim. The little man wore a white canvas navy-cap; but his appearance wasdirty and disreputable, and he had the aspect of a beggar. His visage waswizened and villainous and shot with pock-marks under a coppery stubbleof red beard, and his little mole-like eyes were that close together thatthey seemed fastened to his nose.
The clerk kept me waiting for signatures, and finally handed out my gold.As I filled my purse I was conscious of some one behind me, and, glancingover my shoulder, I saw the Rev. Luther Meeker.