events happened in our first month at sea—events so subtle as perhaps to seem an unimportant part of this narrative of a strange voyage, yet really as necessary to the foundation of the story as the single bricks and the single dabs of mortar at the base of a tall chimney are necessary to the completed structure. I later had cause to remember each trivial incident as if it had been written in letters of fire.
In the first dog watch one afternoon, when we were a few days out of port, I was sitting with my back against the forward deck-house, practising splices and knots with a bit of rope that I had saved for the purpose. I was only a couple of feet from the corner, so of course I heard what was going on just out of sight.
The voices were low but distinct.
"Now leave me alone!" It was Bill Hayden who spoke. "I ain't never troubled you."
"Ah, so you ain't troubled me, have you, you whimpering old dog?"
"No, I ain't troubled you."
"Oh, no! You was so glad to let me take your nice dry boots, you was, when mine was filled with water."
The slow, mild, ostensibly patient voice could be none other than
Kipping's.
"I had to wear 'em myself."
"Oh, had to wear 'em yourself, did you?"
"Let go o' my arm!"
"So?"
"Let go, I tell you; let go or I'll—I swear I'll hammer you good."
"Oh, you'll hammer me good, will you?"
"Let go!"
There was a sudden scuffle, then out from the corner of the deck-house danced Kipping with both hands pressed over his jaw.
"You bloody scoundrel!" he snarled, meek no longer. "You wait—I'll get you. I'll—" Seeing me sitting there with my bit of rope, he stopped short; then, with a sneer, he walked away.
Amazed at the sudden departure of his tormentor, Bill Hayden stuck his own head round the corner and in turn discovered me in my unintentional hiding-place.
Bill, however, instead of departing in chagrin, joined me with a puzzled expression on his kind, stupid face.
"I don't understand that Kipping," he said sadly. "I've tried to use him right. I've done everything I can to help him out and I'm sure I don't want to quarrel with him, yet for all he goes around as meek as a cat that's been in the cream, he's always pecking at me and pestering me, till just now I was fair drove to give him a smart larrup."
Why, indeed, should Kipping or any one else molest good, dull old Bill
Hayden?
"I'm a family man, I am," Bill continued, "with a little girl at home. I ain't a-bothering no one. I'm sure all I want is to be left alone."
For a time we sat in silence, watching the succession of blue waves through which the Island Princess cut her swift and almost silent passage. A man must have been a cowardly bully to annoy harmless old Bill. Yet even then, young though I was, I realized that sometimes there is no more dangerous man than a coward and a bully, "He's great friends with the second mate," Bill remarked at last. "And the second mate has got no use at all for Mr. Thomas because he thought he was going to get Mr. Thomas's berth and didn't; and for the same reason he don't like the captain. Well, I'm glad he's only second mate. He ain't got his hands out of the tar-bucket yet, my boy."
"How do you know he expected to get the mate's berth?" I asked.
"It's common talk, my boy. The supercargo's the only man aft he's got any manner of use for, and cook says the steward says Mr. Hamlin ain't got no manner of use for him. There you are."
"No," I thought—though I discreetly said nothing—"Roger Hamlin is not the man to be on friendly terms with a fellow of the second mate's calibre."
And from that time on I watched Mr. Falk, the second mate, and the mild-voiced Kipping more closely than ever—so closely that one night I stumbled on a surprising discovery.
Ours was the middle watch, and Mr. Falk as usual was on the quarter-deck. By moonlight I saw him leaning on the weather rail as haughtily as if he were the master. His slim, slightly stooped figure, silhouetted against the moonlit sea, was unmistakable. But the winds were inconstant and drifting clouds occasionally obscured the moon. Watching, I saw him distinctly; then, as the moonlight darkened, the after part of the ship became as a single shadow against a sea almost as black. While I still watched, there came through a small fissure in the clouds a single moonbeam that swept from the sea across the quarter-deck and on over the sea again. By that momentary light I saw that Mr. Falk had left the weather rail.
Certainly it was a trifling thing to consider twice, but you must remember, in the first place, that I was only a boy, with all a boy's curiosity about trifles, and in the second place that of the four men in the cabin no other derived such obvious satisfaction from the minor prerogatives of office as Mr. Falk. He fairly swelled like a frog in the sun as he basked in the prestige that he attributed to himself when, left in command, he occupied the captain's place at the weather rail.
Immediately I decided that under the cover of darkness I would see what had become of him. So I ran lightly along in the shelter of the lee bulwark, dodging past the galley, the scuttle-butt, and the cabin in turn. At the quarter-deck I hesitated, knowing well that a sound thrashing was the least I could expect if Mr. Falk discovered me trespassing on his own territory, yet lured by a curiosity that was the stronger for the vague rumors on which it had fed.
On hands and knees I stopped by the farther corner of the cabin. Clouds still hid the moon and low voices came to my ears. Very cautiously I peeked from my hiding-place, and saw that Mr. Falk and the helmsman had put their heads together and were talking earnestly.
While they talked, the helmsman suddenly laughed and prodded Mr. Falk in the ribs with his thumb. Like a flash it came over me that it was Kipping's trick at the wheel. Here was absolute proof that, when the second mate and the mild man thought no one was spying upon them, they were on uncommonly friendly terms. Yet I did not dream that I had stumbled on anything graver than to confirm one of those idle rumors that set tongues wagging in the forecastle, but that really are too trifling to be worth a second thought.
When the crew of a ship is cut off from all communication with the world at large, it is bound, for want of greater interests, to find in the monotonous daily round something about which to weave a pretty tale.
At that moment, to my consternation, the bell struck four times. As the two dark figures separated, I started back out of sight. Kipping's trick at the wheel was over, and his relief would come immediately along the very route that I had chosen; unless I got away at once I should in all probability be discovered on the quarterdeck and trounced within an inch of my life. Then suddenly, as if to punish my temerity, the cloud passed and the moonlight streamed down on deck.
Darting lightly back to the companion-ladder, I slipped down it and was on the point of escaping forward when I heard slow steps. In terror lest the relief spy me and reveal my presence by some exclamation that Kipping or the second mate would overhear, I threw myself down flat on the deck just forward of the scuttle-butt, where the moon cast a shadow; and with the fervent hope that I should appear to be only a heap of old sail, I lay without moving a muscle.
