"Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Stories of the Sea. Morgan Robertson

him throw it?"

      "Never asked. I suppose he objected to something said to him."

      "Ought to ha' killed him on the yard. Are they all of a kind?"

      "Every man. Not one knew the ropes or his place when he shipped. They're schooner sailors from the Lakes, where the captain, if he is civil and respectful to his men, is as good as any of them. They started to clean us up the first day, but failed, and I went to sea with them. Since then, until lately, it has been war to the knife. I've set more bones, mended more heads, and plugged more shot-holes on this passage than ever before, and my officers have grown perceptibly thinner; but little by little, man by man, we've broken them in. Still, I admit, it was a job. Why, that same Seldom Helward I ironed and ran up on the fall of a main-buntline. We were rolling before a stiff breeze and sea, and he would swing six feet over each rail and bat against the mast in transit; but the dog stood it eight hours before he stopped cursing us. Then he was unconscious. When he came to in the forecastle, he was ready to begin again; but they stopped him. They're keeping a log, I learn, and are going to law. Every time a man gets thumped they enter the tragedy, and all sign their names."

      Captain Benson smiled dignifiedly in answer to the outburst of laughter evoked by this, and the men below lifted their haggard, hopeless faces an instant, and looked at the party with eyes that were furtive—cat-like. The grinding of the stones prevented their hearing the talk, but they knew that they were being laughed at.

      "Never knew a sailor yet," wheezed a portly and asthmatic captain, "who wasn't ready to sue the devil and try the court in hell when he's at sea. Trouble is, they never get past the first saloon."

      "They got a little law here," resumed Captain Benson, quietly. "I put them all in the guardo. The consul advised it, and committed them for fear they might desert when we lay at the dock. When I took them out to run to the islands, they complained of being starved; and to tell the truth, they didn't throw their next meal overboard as usual. Nevertheless, a good four weeks' board-bill comes out of their wages. I don't think they'll have a big pay-day in New York: the natives cleaned out the forecastle in their absence, and they'll have to draw heavily on my slop-chest."

      "That's where captains have the best of it," said one of the mates, jocularly—and presumptuously, to judge by his captain's frown; "we hammer 'em round and wear out their clothes, and it's the captain that sells 'em new ones."

      "Captain," said the grizzled one, who had been scanning the crew intently, "I'd pay that crew off if I were you; you ought to ha' let 'em run, or worked 'em out and saved their pay. Look at 'em—look at the devils in their eyes. I notice your mates seldom turn their backs on 'em. I'd get rid of 'em."

      "What! Just when we have them under control and useful? Oh, no! They know their work now, and I'd only have to ship a crowd of beach-combers and half-breeds at nearly double pay. Besides, gentlemen, we're just a little proud of this crew. They are lake sailors from Oswego, a little port on Lake Ontario. When I was young I sailed on the Lakes a season or two and became thoroughly acquainted with the aggressive self-respect of that breed. They would rather fight than eat. Their reputation in this regard prevents them getting berths in any but Oswego vessels, and even affects the policy of the nation. There's a fort at Oswego, and whenever a company of soldiers anywhere in the country become unmanageable—when their officers can't control them outside the guard-house—the War Department at Washington transfers them to Oswego for the tutelage they will get from the sailors. And they get it; they are well-behaved, well-licked soldiers when they leave. An Oswego sailor loves a row. He is possessed by the fighting spirit of a bulldog; he inherits it with his Irish sense of injury; he sucks it in with his mother's milk, and drinks it in with his whisky; and when no enemies are near, he will fight his friends. Pay them off? Not much. I've taken sixteen of those devils round the Horn, and I'll take them back. I'm proud of them. Just look at them," he concluded vivaciously, as he waved his hand at his men; "docile and obedient, down on their knees with bibles and prayer-books."

      "And the name o' the Lord on their lips," grunted the adviser; "but not in prayer, I'll bet you."

      "Hardly," laughed Captain Benson. "Come below, gentlemen; the steward is ready."

      From lack of facilities the mild-faced and smiling steward could not serve that dinner with the style which it deserved. He would have liked, he explained, as they seated themselves, to bring it on in separate courses; but one and all disclaimed such frivolity. The dinner was there, and that was enough. And it was a splendid dinner. In front of Captain Benson, at the head of the table, stood a large tureen of smoking terrapin-stew; next to that a stuffed and baked freshly caught fish; and waiting their turn in the center of the spread, a couple of brace of wild geese from the inland lakes, brown and glistening, oyster-dressed and savory. Farther along was a steaming plum-pudding, overhead on a swinging tray a dozen bottles of wine, by the captain's elbow a decanter of yellow fluid, and before each man's plate a couple of glasses of different size.

      "We'll start off with an appetizer, gentlemen," said the host, as he passed the decanter to his neighbor. "Here is some of the best Dutch courage ever distilled; try it."

      The decanter went around, each filling his glass and holding it poised; then, when all were supplied, they drank to the grizzled old captain's toast: "A speedy and pleasant passage home for the Almena, and further confusion to her misguided crew." The captain responded gracefully, and began serving the stew, which the steward took from him plate by plate, and passed around.

      But, either because thirteen men had sat down to that table, or because the Fates were unusually freakish that day, it was destined that, beyond the initial glass of whisky, not a man present should partake of Captain Benson's dinner. On deck things had been happening, and just as the host had filled the last plate for himself, a wet, bedraggled, dirty little man, his tarry clothing splashed with the slime of the deck, his eyes flaming green, his face expanded to a smile of ferocity, appeared in the forward doorway, holding a cocked revolver which covered them all. Behind him in the passage were other men, equally unkempt, their eyes wide open with excitement and anticipation.

      "Don't ye move," yelped the little man, "not a man. Keep yer hands out o' yer pockets. Put 'em over yer heads. That's it. You too, cappen."

      They obeyed him (there was death in the green eyes and smile), all but one. Captain Benson sprang to his feet, with a hand in his breast pocket.

      "You scoundrels!" he cried, as he drew forth a pistol. "Leave this——" The speech was stopped by a report, deafening in the closed-up space; and Captain Benson fell heavily, his pistol rattling on the floor.

      "Hang me up, will ye?" growled another voice through the smoke.

      In the after-door were more men, the red-haired Seldom Helward in the van, holding a smoking pistol. "Get the gun, one o' you fellows over there," he called.

      A man stepped in and picked up the pistol, which he cocked.

      "One by one," said Seldom, his voice rising to the pitch and timbre of a trumpet-blast, "you men walk out the forward companionway with your hands over your heads. Plug them, Sinful, if two move together, and shoot to kill."

      Taken by surprise, the guests, resolute men though they were, obeyed the command. As each rose to his feet, he was first relieved of a bright revolver, which served to increase the moral front of the enemy, then led out to the booby-hatch, on which lay a newly broached coil of hambro-line and pile of thole-pins from the boatswain's locker. Here he was searched again for jack-knife or brass knuckles, bound with the hambro-line, gagged with a thole-pin, and marched forward, past the prostrate first mate, who lay quiet in the scuppers, and the erect but agonized second mate, gagged and bound to the fife-rail, to the port forecastle, where he was locked in with the Chinese cook, who, similarly treated, had preceded. The mild-faced steward, weeping now, as much from professional disappointment as from stronger emotion, was questioned sternly, and allowed his freedom on his promise not to "sing out" or make trouble. Captain Benson was examined, his injury diagnosed as brain-concussion, from the glancing bullet, more or less serious, and dragged out to the scuppers, where he was bound beside his unconscious first officer. Then, leaving them to live or die as their subconsciousness determined, the sixteen mutineers