of your watch can have a say in the matter before I put him ashore.”
Garnett left the poop and went forward and told his watch what was wanted, and they in turn told the man, Gretto Gonzales, whom they held tightly bound for further orders.
“Eet iz no fair! Yo no hablo Engleeze!” cried the ruffian, who began to understand his position.
“Colorado maduro, florifino perfecto,” replied Garnett, gravely, remembering what Spanish he had read on the covers of various cigar-boxes. “If you don’t savey English, I’m all solid with your bloomin’ Spanish. So bear a hand, bullies, and bring the convict aft.”
His victim, a mortally wounded man lying in a bunk, and two others badly cut in the onslaughts Gonzales had begun the first day at sea, smiled hopefully. Davis, the principal object of his attacks, cursed him quietly, although his lungs had been pierced twice by the Spaniard’s knife. The two other men, Americans, who had taken his part in the affrays and suffered in consequence, also swore heartily, and sarcastically wished Gonzales a pleasant sojourn on the Tierra del Fuego.
Although the ship carried no passengers, Enoch Moss had thought fit to provide a stewardess. This woman was well known to many deep-water skippers, and at one time had possessed extreme beauty. Her early history no one knew, but since she had taken to the sea she had endeavored to make up for this deficiency by creating enough for several women.
Plump and rosy she was still, and much thought of by all with whom she sailed. Many a poor sailor had reason to thank Moll, as she was called, for the tidbits she brought forward from the cabin mess, for often a few meals of good food did much to save a man from the horrible scurvy which for years has been the curse of the deep-water fleet.
Whatever faults the woman had, she also had good qualities in abundance.
It was a strange scene there in the cabin when Gonzales was brought before the captain. The twelve sailors shuffled about uneasily as they stood against the cabin bulkhead, while Enoch Moss sat at the head of the table with his charts and instruments before him. On one side stood the condemned man, who was to be tried again, so that the skipper’s oath to maroon him would be more than a sudden condemnation. It would have the backing of twelve honest sailors in case of further developments. That the twelve honest sailors would agree with the captain was evident by the respectful attitude in which they stood, and the uneasy and fearful glances they cast at him across the cabin table. O’Toole stood in the cabin door, and behind him, looking over his shoulder, stood Moll.
Enoch Moss looked up at the man before him and spoke in his deep, hoarse voice.
“You have fought four times since you’ve been aboard,” said he; “the last time you broke out your irons and nearly killed Davis, and I promised to maroon you. I’ll do it before night.” Then he turned to the men. “We have tried to keep this fellow in irons and he breaks out. He has cut three of you. Do you agree with me that it is best to put him ashore before further trouble, or not?”
“Yes, sir, put him on the beach,” came a hoarse answer from the men that made O’Toole smile.
“Got anything to say before you go?” asked the skipper.
The poor fellow looked across to the door in the bulkhead. His eyes met those of Moll, and he gazed longingly at her a moment while a look of peculiar tenderness spread over his coarse, fierce face. Then he looked at a seam in the cabin floor for an instant and appeared to be thinking.
“Well, speak up,” growled Enoch Moss.
“Yo no hablo Americano. Yo no understand. No, I say nothin’; yes, I say thank you.” And he looked the skipper squarely in the face.
“You can take him forward,” said Enoch Moss.
As they filed out again into the cold and wet, Moll watched them, and after they had gone the skipper called her.
“Do you know Gonzales or Davis?” said he.
“Never saw either of them before they came aboard this ship,” she answered in a steady voice.
The captain looked long and searchingly at the woman before him. She met his gaze fairly for the space of a minute; then her lip trembled slightly.
“That will do. You may go,” said he, and his voice had a peculiar sadness that few people had ever heard.
O’Toole’s step sounded on the deck overhead, and, as the stewardess went forward into the main cabin, the mate’s voice sounded down the companion-way. “It’s hauled to the north’ard, sir. Shall I let her come as high as sou’-sou’west, sir?”
Enoch Moss sat silent at the table. He was thinking of a Spanish crest he had seen tattooed on the white arm of the stewardess. It belonged to her “family,” she had told him, and was tattooed there when she was a child of sixteen.
“Yes, let her head up to the southwest, and call me when we get in close enough to lower a boat,” he replied.
Before dark they were as close in as they dared to go, much closer than one skipper out of ten would take his ship, even in calm weather. Then a boat was lowered and Gonzales was put into it with enough to eat to last him a month. Garnett and two sailors jumped in, and all was ready.
The skipper stood at the break of the poop, and beside him stood O’Toole.
“Ye better not cast th’ raskil adrift till ye get ashore,” said the mate, “for by th’ faith av th’ howly saints, ’twill be himself that will be for coming aboard an’ laving ye to hunt a route from th’ Cape.”
“Trust me to see the pirit landed safely,” replied Garnett. “I’ve handled men before.”
A female head appeared at the door of the forward cabin just beneath the skipper’s feet. He looked down at it unnoticed for a moment. Then he spoke in a low voice, moving away from O’Toole, so he could not hear—
“Would you like to go with him?”
Moll started as if shot. Then she looked up at the captain with a face pale and drawn into a ghastly smile. She gave a hard laugh, and walked out on the main-deck and looked at the boat as the oars fell across. The condemned man looked up, and his eyes met hers, but she rested her arms on the bulwarks and gazed steadily at him over the top-gallant-rail until he went slowly out of sight.
Two hours later Garnett and the men returned with the empty boat.
The ship was headed away to the southwest, and the struggle to turn the corner began with one man less in the port-watch.
In the dog-watch Garnett met O’Toole on the main-deck.
“We landed him right enough,” he said, “for we just put him ashore, and then only cast off his hands, so we could get into the boat afore he could walk. But what seemed almighty queer was his asking me to give the skipper’s stewardess that ring. Do you suppose they was ever married or knowed each other afore?”
“I don’t suppose nothin’, Garnett; but you better give her the ring. Davis is a good enough man, but one man don’t try to kill another, so strong, for nothin.’ Better give her the ring—and you want to git that chafing-gear on the fore-royal-backstay a little higher up; it’s cuttin’ through against the yard.”
The following night at two bells the wind began to come in puffs, and in less than half an hour afterwards it was snorting away in true Cape Horn style.
It was Garnett’s watch on deck at midnight, and as he came on the poop he saw there was to be some discomfort. Each rope of the standing and running rigging, shroud and backstay, downhaul and clew-line, was piping away with a lively note, and the deep, smothered, booming roar overhead told how the ship stood to it and that the canvas was holding. The three lower storm-topsails and the main spencer were all the sails set, and for a while the ship stood up to it in good shape. At ten minutes past three in the morning she shipped a sea that smothered her. With a rush and thundering shock a hundred tons of water washed over her.