The Royal Yard

I

THE decks of the ship had been recently holystoned, and gleamed whitely in the light of the brilliant moon. Thin lines of black showed where pitch had been poured into the seams between the planks. Here and there, in the proper places, ringbolts lay on their sunken iron plates with an aspect of coiled shadows. There were many shadows about the decks. Under the fo’c’sle head the windlass stood concealed within a wall of blackness. Bars of sable slanted aft and to leeward from the rigging and the masts, and solid masses lay beside the deck houses. Larger shapes of gloom were cast by the lower parts of the mainsail and foresail, and narrow bands by the hatches.

All these shadows moved with the motion of the ship, not in the direct manner of solid things, backward and forward and from side to side, keeping their shape and quantity, but oddly, sliding two or three ways at once, spreading outward, drawing in, changing their angles and their forms and dimensions, like living things boneless and silent.

Shortly after eight bells in the first watch a boy crouched over the forward taffrail on the lee side of the poop, absorbed in this fantasy of motion. He was very still, and unconscious of anything but the shadows, whose movement fascinated him. They seemed so solid and real that he wondered why they left no mark on the deck, and by what quaint magic they changed their shapes, moving into the world and out again.

The bark was heading north on a summer sea, with the wind on the starboard beam, all sail set and drawing sweetly, her movement through the water gentle and smooth. The slight rolling motion was due to the swell, not to the little weaves raised by the balmy wind, which were thinly capped with foam and slapped playfully against her weather side as she slipped along. Placid sounds of bubbling and faint splashings came from the water overside,

Lost in his contemplation of the shadows, the boy was unconscious of these whispers of laughter from the friendly sea; but they went on without pause, and after a while the melody of the overside chorus drew his attention. Moving without a sound on the pads of his bare feet, seeming as effortless as the shadows he had been watching, he reached the corner of the taffrail and looked down. The bark was moving swiftly through the water and pulled the sea along with her for a little way, turning it slightly in her own direction of motion. Countless tiny bubbles floated up from the depths and burst at the surface, an endless fusillade whose delicate frothing mingled with the wash of the ship’s passage and the slapping of the waves in a soft medley of delightful sound. There were small ripples curving toward the bow, and close against the side of the ship was a line of churning foam.

These sights and sounds, almost as familiar as the ship herself, held him with unwavering charm from night to night. But now a different sound came to his ears, a sort of vibrant sigh t hat he knew he had heard before. He searched the surface closely, but it did not come from near the ship, and he raised his eyes to the wide stretch of sea. For a few moments he saw nothing but the little waves running in the moonlight, with purple shadows underneath and small crests that broke in foamy whispers. Then, suddenly, a cloud of glittering shapes flashed out of the sea. They rose slantingly, cutting through the crests in their upward leap, sailed swiftly above the surface on motionless wings, then dipped with fan-shaped splashes, and came up again for another short flight. The silvery gleam of the flying fish delighted him, though he knew that terror drove them out of the water, that just beneath the surface raced the ravenous bonitos, swiftest of all sea dwellers, with sharp-toothed jaws agape. There were different schools hunting that night, some driving one way and some another, and he marveled at the speed of the hunters when they leaped out of the water to catch a lagging prey.

On the weather side of the poop the mate paced slowly back and forth in an endless series of short journeys, terminating when he halted abreast of the wheel to observe her moonlit wake, and again at the forward taffrail when he paused to cast a searching glance aloft. Infrequently he strolled amidships and peered into the standard compass abaft the mizzenmast, to see if the ship was holding her course. On one of his journeys forward, as he came abreast of the companion hatchway, he glanced across the poop and saw the boy jammed into the corner of the taffrail, lost to all but the gleaming shoals of flying fish. The mate went softly down the companion stairway and glanced at the cabin clock. It was five minutes past nine, and two bells had not been struck. Ascending to the poop, he walked over to the boy, who heard his approach and turned to look at him with slightly startled eyes.

‘Dreamin’ again,’ said the mate accusingly. ‘What time is it?’

The boy squirmed round, fronting the officer.

‘I’ll see, sir,’ he offered guiltily.

‘Look here, Jim. You’d better stop dreamin’. Duty comes before flyin’ fish. Miss the bells again an’ you’ll spend your watch below on the royal yard. Now mind what I’m tellin’ ye.’

‘Yes, sir,’ answered the boy appeasingly.

‘Strike two bells,’ ordered the mate, turning away.

The boy went to the after end of the cabin skylight and struck twice on the little bell, listening to its mellow tone until it faded into a far-away wisp of sound that was lost among the murmurs of the night. Then came the deep chime of the ship’s bell from forward, and he listened to that also until its last note died.

When he went forward to the rail again he intended to keep very alert and strike four bells exactly at ten o’clock. But as he reached the head of the ladder he heard a multitudinous sighing of filmy wings, and a shoal of flying fish sailed across the main deck at the waist. He stopped dead, then darted down the ladder to look under the foot of the mainsail, but they were gone. He thought he had heard a faint smack somewhere, and wondered what it was. Perhaps one of the fish had fallen aboard, so he ran along the deck, jumped to the main hatch to secure a better view, and descried a slender small shape on the lee topgallant rail. In a moment he was beside it, his hands resting on the edge of the rail and his head bent in close examination of the unintentional visitor. It was a small fish, of a silvery color, with wings of membranous, filmy stuff that looked too delicate to be roughly touched. Its movements became slower and weaker as he watched it, and it looked rather pathetic, he thought; so he climbed on the rail, caught it behind the wings with his forefinger and thumb, and dropped it into the sea. That side of the ship was in deep shadow, but he saw the fish sink inertly for a moment, then flash out of sight with the speed of a rifle bullet. Pleased at this, he stood faintly smiling until he heard a murmur coming from forward, the barely audible voice of one of the men. He slid off the rail and approached within a few feet of two men, one of whom was talking, the other smoking and listening in complete silence.

The boy leaned against the rail, his eyes slightly above the level of the bulwarks; the words of the speaker came clearly to him. The man was telling his companion what he was going to do at the end of this or some other voyage, and the boy became absorbed in the simple tale and charmed by the voice that was telling it. The sailor had saved his money and had nearly a thousand dollars in the bank at home. At the end of this voyage he would have two hundred more, and with twelve hundred dollars he knew where he could buy a two-masted schooner, old, but sound and seaworthy, which he would take down to the South Pacific to look for an island he had heard about, where flowed a spring of magic water that would cure every disease in the world. He had learned of it from a man he was shipmates with, a few voyages before this, who had reached the island in an open boat after being shipwrecked. One of the men in the boat was nearly dead with consumption, another had heart disease, and one had trouble with his kidneys; but after they had been drinking the water for a week all their diseases vanished, and when a passing ship took them off they were in perfect health and very strong. This man intended to fill the hold of his little schooner with five-gallon bottles and carry the water to San Francisco, where he would sell it at a handsome profit. The schooner would be his own, and if he did not find the island right away he could do a little trading to cover expenses.

The moonlight on the sea, the murmur of the caressing wind, and the deep glamour of the night made a perfect setting for this kind of yarn, and the boy saw the schooner, the island, and the bottles full of magic water as plainly as though they were set before him. But the man’s voice charmed him more than the tale. It was mellow and very low, tuned to the night in such a way that it seemed an impersonal sound, like the murmur of the wind or the wash of the sea alongside.

By and by the image of the little schooner faded away, and the boy gazed at the horizon, which had a sort of thin, smoky haze above it, very fine and low. He turned at the sound of someone going aft, saw it was Lars, and followed him until he halted below the break of the poop and asked the mate’s permission to harpoon bonitos at the bows. There was a school of them under the bowsprit, he said.

‘Go ahead,’ the mate granted permission. ‘But don’t wake the watch below.’

‘I won’t make no noise, sir,’ promised Lars, turning to go forward again.

The boy’s heart stirred with excitement. Harpooning bonitos! He must go up to the bows and see that. He would not miss it for anything.

‘Can I go, sir?’ he asked the mate, who pondered for a moment.

‘Yes, but don’t forget what I told you about the bells.’

’I won’t forget, sir.’ He ran into the cabin from the main deck and looked at the clock. It was half-past nine, and he stood for a moment impressing on his mind the necessity of remembering to strike four bells at ten o’clock, unless he wanted to spend his watch below on the royal yard. He left the cabin and raced forward, went up the ladder to the fo’c’sle head in two bounds, and came upon Lars standing beside the port anchor. The seaman was working with the harpoon, lashing the shank to the iron, which had a swivel barb at the end. The barb was held in place by a thin iron ring, which was pushed back when the head entered the fish; then a jerk on the line turned the barb crosswise, which prevented it from drawing unless the strain was very heavy, in which case a large piece of the victim was torn away.

Lars looked up and winked as the boy came close.

‘Want to see the fun?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ replied the boy eagerly. ‘I’d like to see it, Lars.’

Lars paused a moment and pressed a hand against his jaw.

‘I got a hell’s-fire toothache,’ he complained. ‘Did n’t get no sleep las’ night. I’ll die pretty soon if the bloomin’ thing don’t quit.’

He completed the lashing, took the check ring between his finger and thumb, and moved it up and down on the iron a few times to see that it worked smoothly. Then he lifted the end of a line coiled on the deck and made it fast by passing it through a hole in the end of the shank and putting a double hitch in it. Carrying the line and harpoon in one hand, he went forward and stepped out on the bowsprit, walked along it a few paces, and sat down, straddling it. The free end of the line he made fast to the jackstay, slid over sideways, and planted his left foot on the bobstay, letting the bight of the line hang free. The boy followed him on to the bowsprit, but stopped a fathom or more behind him and crouched down on the boomkins. Lars turned his head.

‘ Soon as you see me fast, Sonny, get in off the bowsprit. Them bonitos are strong an’ struggle like hell. Don’t make a noise an’ wake the watch below, an’ don’t get excited an’ fall overboard.’

The boy promised to follow all these instructions, and looked over the ship’s bow. There was a singing curl of foam at her forefoot, a bone in her mouth, and forward of that a dozen or more bonitos were sporting about — crossing back and forth, frolicking with each other, going straight ahead in regular formation, diving suddenly, dashing off like flashes of dark blue lightning, or leaping clear of the water in a graceful curve. The boy watched the fish with his usual absorption in what he looked at, admiring their ease of movement and their effortless leaps out of the water, careless expenditures of superabundant energy. But now a large bonito, moving in line with the ship, curved into the air directly beneath Lars. The seaman’s arm went up with a jerk, and the harpoon darted down. It seemed a straight cast, and the boy felt a swift surge of excitement; but the point of the barb did not strike true, either from a sidewise motion of the bonito or from the inaccuracy of the throw, and the harpoon plunged harmlessly into the sea.

‘Missed!’ growled Lars, hauling in the light line to which the weapon was attached. Immediately he was ready again, and the boy raised his eyes from the sea, whence the bonitos had disappeared with a flirt of their tails, and watched the seaman. He crouched on the bowsprit, poised and tensely expectant, his right hand gripping the jackstay, his naked left foot placed firmly on the bobstay, the harpoon held ready in his left hand. He seemed to the boy in the moonlight like a figure of olden legend, wrought in some enduring stuff with the color and glow of life and the stillness of bronze.

The bonitos came back, having recovered from their scare, and continued their gambols under the bowsprit, attracted by the enormous creature, the ship, and desirous of keeping it company. Lars waited, silent and motionless, till his next chance came, and made his cast at a fish that turned on its side at the surface and made a broad target. The harpoon went down and pierced clear through its body, and the boy in his excitement uttered a faint, whimpering scream. Lars whipped in the line with swift overhand pulls, and the bonito fought madly, frightfully wounded as it was. At first it tried to dash away, but the harpoon made that impossible, and when the line came taut in the strong hands of Lars the struggling fish was hauled under the bowsprit and lifted out of the water. The boy remembered his instructions and skipped back to the fo’c’sle head, where he watched the struggle between man and bonito. The fish was three feet long, with a heavy, powerful body, and its struggles were titanic. When Lars got it up on the bowsprit it flogged about with tremendous strength, and, powerful as he was, he had all he could do to hold it. Gripping it with both arms against his chest, he slid along the bowsprit bit by bit until he reached the boomkins, then he scrambled to his feet and reached the deck, where he threw down his catch and knelt over it to extract the harpoon. When he had done that he pulled an iron belaying pin from the rail and struck the thrashing bonito several crushing blows on the head, until it lay still. The boy watched excitedly, making little ineffectual motions to help, but keeping out of the seaman’s way.

When the bonito was dead, and the boy stood bent over the still body whence the amazing energy had fled, noting the blue back and lightercolored belly and the four brown stripes on the side, Lars turned to him and said, ‘It must be four bells now, Sonny, an’ it’s my next wheel.'

The boy looked up uncomprehendingly, so deep was his present interest, noticed that the seaman’s shirt was soaked with blood, glanced down at the bonito again, and saw a film of dark stuff spreading slowly over the deck, which Lars would have to wash off before it soaked in and left a stain. Then his mind came back to ordinary things, and he remembered the mate’s threat of the royal yard if he forgot the time again. He leaped for the ladder and down to the deck, fled aft to the cabin, and saw that it was two minutes after ten. The mate noticed him, and suspected from his hurried striking of four bells that he was late again. Waiting till they heard the ship’s bell repeating the hour, the mate called the boy over.

‘What time is it?’ he asked ominously.

‘Two minutes after ten, sir,’ answered the boy, looking steadily at the officer.

‘What were you doin’, dreamin’ again? ’

‘No, sir. I was on the bowsprit, watching Lars harpoon a bonito.’

The hard look on the mate’s face changed to an expression of interest.

‘Did he get one?’

‘Yes, sir.’ Animation lighted the boy’s face. ‘ He caught a big one. You ought to have seen how it struggled.'

‘Aye, they’re strong.’ Memories of other days carried the mate’s mind away from the boy’s fault, and he stood looking off to leeward until Lars came to relieve the wheel. The relieved man reported the course on his way forward, which brought the officer back to the present. Two minutes was a small matter, he thought, not enough to justify such severe punishment as spending a watch below on the royal yard. For the sake of discipline, however, he could not overlook the boy’s carelessness a second time, so he compromised.

‘Stay on the poop the rest of the watch, an’ keep movin’,’ he commanded.

‘Yes, sir.’ The boy returned to the lee side, and walked back and forth in the mood of subdued rejoicing that follows narrow escape from a grave danger which may still be hovering near.

II

The mate sent his glance aloft in swift scrutiny, saw nothing that needed attention, and glanced outboard, scanning the horizon for a light or a black cloud or the loom of land. Nothing was in sight, and he brought his gaze inboard again. There was something about the starboard headlight, he began to suspect, that was not quite right. The headlights were not visible from the poop. Their reflection could be seen from aft only against rain or fog, or when the ship was rolling and the light struck the surface of the sea, but his trained vision told him that the light was not burning as brightly as it should. He called the boy quietly, so as not to disturb the sleep of the captain and the second mate in their cabins below.

‘Go for’ard an’ take a look at that starboard light.’

‘Yes, sir.’ The boy went down the ladder and ran lightly along the main deck, mounted the ladder to the fo’c’sle head, and came face to face with the man on lookout, who stopped his ’thwartships tramp and looked at his visitor in silence. The boy told him the mate’s order, and Mac walked to the lighthouse and leaned over the rail to look at the lens.

‘It’s a little bit dim,’ he admitted. ‘But how can he tell? He must have damn good eyes t’ see round a corner.’

The boy laughed and went down to the main deck, entered the closet under the light, and stood on the seat to open the door of the lantern. With a match he broke the crust off the wick and turned it up till it burned with a clear, bright flame and no smoke, then closed the door and returned to the poop, where he reported to the mate.

Going back to the lee side, he leaned over the stern taffrail and watched the wake, which stretched far astern in a straight line, like a white road leading over the horizon. Lars was a fine steersman, he thought. He listened to the sound of the water, watched the whirling eddies astern of the rudder, then turned and walked forward a few paces until his roving eye was caught by a movement near the starboard royal backstay. The moon was on that side, and the motion that attracted his attention was going on about five feet above the deck, a faint flickering of something that wavered into the shadow of the backstay and out again. It could not be a night moth, blown out to sea by the wind, as the ship was too far from land for any creature of the shore to be hovering about her. The thing near the backstay was slender and pale gray, so delicate that he could just see it.

The mate passed along the poop, halted at the backstay and looked at it, glanced up at the weather clew of the main royal, and went on to the head of the ladder, where he stood thoughtful and motionless. The boy passed to the weather side, which he was not supposed to do without orders; but he could move without the mate seeing or hearing him, and he wanted to know what that thing was. Putting up his hand, he caught it on his palm, and found it to be a fine strand of gray woolen yarn blowing in the breeze — tied there by the mate, he learned later, to show him the direction of the wind. The boy went softly back to the lee side. He struck six bells exactly on time, and glanced at Lars, who had changed his shirt before coming to the wheel.

‘How’s your toothache?’ the boy whispered.

Lars gave his usual friendly wink. ‘All gone,’ he replied in a murmur so low that it barely reached the ears of the boy, who smiled and resumed his happy wandering about the poop. It had been an eventful watch, and there was more to happen. Along about seven bells the lookout sent a hail aft: —

‘Light on the starboard beam, sir.’

The boy glanced swiftly to windward, where a single gleam shone clear above the horizon about a point before the beam. He watched it rise and saw the headlights appear, green on the left and red on the right, which showed that the steamer was heading straight for them. But the sailing ship had the right of way, and she was moving out of the steamer’s course, in any case. Gradually the latter’s port light faded from view and only the green was visible under the bright twinkle at her masthead, which indicated that she would pass astern of them. Other lights appeared as she drew swiftly nearer, dim gleams about her decks that seemed to the watching boy to make her more mysterious, a sounding shadow on the lonely vastness of the sea. She passed close astern, and he heard the rhythmic beat of her engines, dull throbbings that carried clearly over the water. Once he heard a high, angry voice, faint and far away, and a sound like a drum beaten with erratic strokes, the ash can clattering down the ventilator shaft to the stokehold. The ashes were being hoisted by half-naked men, strong and hideously profane, who toiled in front of her blazing furnaces to make the steam t hat drove her along. To the enchanted boy she was not so much a ship that passed in the night as another world, swinging briefly across his vision from darkness to darkness.

When her lights were low on the western horizon he turned away with a sigh and went down to the cabin to look at the clock. He saw it was just a quarter to twelve and struck one bell, listened for the answering stroke on the ship’s bell, and went into the half deck on the starboard side to call the boy who relieved him at eight bells. That done, he entered the cabin from the main deck, and went into one of the rooms to call the second mate, who was a heavy sleeper and hard to wake. The boy shook him vigorously by both shoulders, imploring him to wake up, as it was nearly eight bells and the mate would be furious if he was not relieved on time. Failing to rouse him by this method, eliciting nothing but a few drowsy grunts, the boy dipped a sponge in a washbasin half full of cold water, squeezed it a little, and applied it briefly to the face of the sleeper, who awoke with a curse and sat up in the bunk, glaring at him. The boy tossed the sponge neatly into the basin, fled from the room, and got back to the poop in almost no time. But the angry oath of the second mate had taken something from the peaceful glamour of the night.

It was ten minutes to twelve, and, feeling slightly depressed, he went aft to the stern taffrail, leaned over, and looked at the foaming water, his startled interest suddenly aroused by an immense moving shadow at the edge of the wake. The dark bulk of a shark was plainly visible in the bright moonlight, its dorsal fin and part of its back showing clear of the water in the hollows and submerging under the crests. He could see the occasional glint of its cold evil eyes, and was almost certain it was staring at him. A faint shudder passed through him, and his feeling of depression deepened. The sea darkened as a small cloud hid the moon for a moment, and something menacing seemed to have crept into the night. He glanced at Lars, who was weary from loss of sleep and glad that his trick at the wheel was nearly over. The mate, tired of his slow promenade, leaned his elbows on the forward taffrail and gazed sombrely along the main deck. But he remembered to heave the log at five minutes before eight bells. A seaman of the watch came on the poop to hold the glass, the boy held the log reel, the mate eased the line over the stern while the sand ran out of the half-minute glass. The ship was going, according to his reading, at the rate of ten knots an hour.

The seaman hauled in the log line and the boy wound it on the reel, which he hung in the canvas slings suspended from the rail; then returned to the lee side and went to the head of the ladder. There was a peaceful stir about the decks forward as the men of the starboard watch came out of the fo’c’sle one at a time and sat on the fore hatch smoking their pipes, ready to muster aft at eight bells. The other boy came from the starboard side of the half deck and sat on the after hatch. The boy on the poop looked at the clock again and saw it was one minute to twelve, then went aft and glanced over the stern. The shark was still there.

The lookout on the fo’c’sle head halted his slow tramp from side to side and gazed uneasily ahead. Something had att racted his trained eye, but when he looked steadily ahead he could see nothing unusual. It showed again, and he moved quickly forward to the starboard cathead and scanned the sea, saw a dark patch like a shadow, and threw a swift sidewise glance at the moon, but saw no cloud near it that could cast a shadow there. It might be seaweed, he thought. His attitude grew tense, and he stared fixedly at the dark area on the surface, which was now within a cable’s length of the prow. A dark flat mass rose barely into view, and at once there was a white flash of broken water. Breakers! But there were no tide rocks in this part of the sea. Then the frightful truth crashed into his brain. He leaped aft to the rail and sang out in a harsh, urgent voice that rose to a scream: —

‘Hard astarboard! Derelict dead ahead! ’

For a brief moment this voice of terror and dismay, shouting the deadliest peril of the seas, struck all hands into stark silence. But before the sound of the words had died away the mate awoke to action with a volcanic roar:—

‘Hard astarboard!’

Lars at the wheel, alert and waiting the word of command, released his pent energy and spun the wheel with a twinkle of whirling spokes. The boy’s head had jerked up at the hail from the lookout; he turned swiftly at the order from the mate, listened for a second to an exploding babel of voices forward and the drumming feet of men running aft, then sprang toward the wheel to lend Lars a hand.

The derelict was awash, her dark and weedy decks now above and now below the level of the sea. She lay fair across the course of the ship, which had no time to answer her helm and struck with appalling force, heaving her bows upward in a clamor of rending steel. The boy was thrown violently to the deck, striking his head against the binnacle standard. The mate was hurled over the poop ladder and fell headlong to the main deck, where he lay stunned. The man at the wheel was driven against the spokes and twisted across them, sprawled backward, and fell beside the boy, both of them concealed from view behind the cabin skylight.

The foremast, wrenched upward and backward against all its weight of canvas, snapped short above the deck and came down with a crash like the end of the world, the ends of parted backstays whistling through the air. Thrust downward by the force of the collision, the derelict sank clear of the keel and came up again under the waist, lifting the ship crazily, so that she fell on her beam ends and cracked off her weakened mainmast. The mizzenmast remained standing, but the peak halyards carried away and the gaff came down by the run, snapping off at the mast and falling near the spanker boom, bringing with it the spanker, which hung from the boom to the poop on the port side. The derelict submerged a second time and did not come up again, as she must have been smashed wide open and brought up the first time by the air imprisoned in her hold. The air escaped and she sank, leaving the ship with only her mizzenmast standing, her bows stove in and her back broken, a total wreck and sinking rapidly. She was now heading due east, having been swung round at right angles to her course, and lay motionless.

This sudden fury of blind destruction had lasted less than a minute. The white-faced captain rushed up the companion stairway and read in one comprehensive glance the whole tale of the catastrophe, saw that his ship was wrecked, and with a groan that was barely audible strode to the break of the poop and shouted for the mate. The second mate came running on to the poop and stood slightly behind the captain. The boy on the main deck picked himself up and pointed to the foot of the ladder, calling up that the mate was hurt.

‘Get the boats over as quick as you can,’ said the captain to the second mate, glancing at the sea creeping up the side of the ship. ‘I don’t believe she’ll stay afloat for twenty minutes.’ He turned and descended to the cabin. The second mate ran down the ladder to the main deck, calling all hands to take their stations and get the boats over. Some of the men had been hurt, but he paid no attention to these at first. Working in a fury of ordered haste, he got five of the eight lifeboats swung outboard and lowered into the water. But a davit tackle got fouled somehow, and while trying to straighten it out they let the fifth boat fall into the water, where it floated bottom up and useless, as they had no time to right it. Fortunately the four remaining boats were sufficient for the men they had to carry.

The captain came from the cabin with a black leather bag in his hand and stood watching the work, his face set and troubled. The second mate made his report about the boats and the injured men, of whom there were four, including the mate. One had been assigned to each boat. One man and a boy were missing.

The carpenter was sent in command of the first boat, the bos’n of the second, the second mate of the third. They were told to keep in sight of the captain’s boat and to steer due east for the Cape Verde Islands if they got separated. The captain had the fourth boat and took the injured mate with him. Believing himself the last man on board, he took silent farewell of his vessel, looked gloomily about the broken decks, and marveled at the frightful destruction. But the men in the boat were impatient, although he tarried no longer than a few seconds, so he took his place in the stern sheets and gave the order to push off. The boat was shoved clear and pulled swiftly away from the sinking wreck, the sail was hoisted and they came up with the other boats, then dropped the sail and lay by to see the last of their ship.

The man lying behind the cabin skylight became conscious and raised his head, felt a stab of pain in the region of his heart, placed his hand there, and found a severe bruise made by one of the spokes of the wheel. He moved listlessly to a sitting posture, glanced at the boy, and saw him stir slightly, trying unconsciously to alter his position. Lars became suddenly aware of the dead stillness about the decks and rose to his feet abruptly. A single glance showed him the situation. They had abandoned the ship, which was sinking, and had failed to see the boy and himself behind the skylight. Casting a swift glance to starboard, he noted that the sea was empty in that direction, and his view to port was cut off by the fallen spanker. Going swiftly to the companion hatch, he briefly surveyed the shattered main deck, looked over the side at the capsized boat, and saw that the water was just coming level with the scuppers. She would go down any minute, and they two were alone on board.

The pressing need for haste sent him racing down the companion stairway and into the pantry, where he caught up an empty quart bottle, which he filled with drinking water from the cooler and slung round his neck with a piece of marline he had in his pocket, pressing the cork well in to keep out the sea water. Rushing from the pantry, he sped up the stairs to the poop, and felt the ship settling under his feet as he darted lo the boy and picked him up. A moment later he was struggling in the water, and in the midst of supreme and exhausting effort wondered why he had not been dragged down in the vortex. But this inconsequent thought did not interfere with his proper action, and he reached the overturned boat bobbing about in the foamy water, dragged himself and his unconscious burden on to the rounded surface and rested there, safe enough for the present. The spanker had concealed his movements from the boats, which set sail the moment the ship went down and went dancing away toward the Cape Verdes.

Laying the boy carefully alongside the keel, he examined the water bottle and found it unbroken, pulled the cork and rinsed it off with a few drops of the precious fluid, raised the boy’s head and gave him a drink, then took a mouthful himself and wished there had been time to drink all he wanted in the pantry before the ship sank. The boy’s feet slipped downward, and Lars noticed a dorsal fin cutting the water not far away. He jerked the boy upward and inward as a dark, enormous shape came hurtling past with a snap of lethal jaws and an ugly gleam of bluish-gray belly. A slow panic, against which he fought with small success, forced Lars to close his eyes in the effort to shut from his mind the immense, indifferent sky and the waiting shark. Tragic stories of the sea passed through his mind, tales of horror and suffering that had chilled the blood and cast a shadow over the hearts of men. Trembling in a cold sweat, he opened his eyes, leaned over carefully, and moved the boy partly on top of the keel, which in the middle of the boat projected about two inches from the bottom, thus placing him in the position of greatest safety. Slight as the action was, it provided a moment of selfforgetfulness and loosened the grip of panic, which faded away and left him calm and somewhat ashamed.

III

The commotion on the sea subsided, and soon not even her shroud of foam remained of the ship that had been his home for two bright and careless years. He surveyed the water in the neighborhood of the boat, examined every floating object in the hope that something of use might be found. There were many articles, but their present value was nothing: a chicken coop, a pigpen, oars, some empty boxes, fragments of broken spars, a white-painted cork life belt, and one of the poop ladders. His thoughts were busy as he inspected this flotsam, but he could see no way to use any of it.

Relaxing his interest in that direction, he turned his eyes on the boy, searching the inert, faintly breathing body as if the sight of his helpless shipmate might awake an idea in his anxious mind. But nothing came to him, and his mood gradually subsided to passive patience. There was nothing to do but wait. They might be picked up by a passing ship, or thirst might kill them if the shark did not get them first. Lars came from an ancient line of seafarers, and he knew from racial as well as personal experience that the sea held many unexpected chances. The boat was right in the track of ships, and one might come along at any time. He drew comfort and some degree of serenity from this thought, and sat watching the sea’s motion, noting the small crests of foam that sparkled in the moonlight, the purple shadows of the hollows, the little ripples running at varying angles from trough to crest on the windward side of the waves, the quaint small feathers and plumes of foam that spurted here and there from the tops and were scattered by the wind.

Once he saw the spout of a whale, and in spite of his averted gaze he was always aware of the shark’s livid track just beneath the surface. So long as he kept awake he knew the shark would not get him, but if he went to sleep the motion of the boat would topple him and the boy over the side and the shark would get them both. If they escaped that fate they might be picked up by a passing ship during the coming day, but he did not think he could stay awake through another night. And the shark was not their only enemy, perhaps not their worst. There was the lack of water, and the torture of thirst on the high seas.

Added to the weariness due to his lack of sleep on the previous night was the effect of the blow over the heart received from the spoke of the wheel at the moment of collision. Craving sleep, but fearing and resisting it, he sat on the keel of the overturned boat, whose motion was gentle and soothing, while the balmy wind caressed him and the voice of the sea was a lullaby. His legs were stretched out on each side of the boy, whose feet were toward him, and Lars occasionally leaned forward to push the unconscious lad inboard when the motion of the boat shifted him. The seaman had laid him on his face, his head resting on his arms, which were crossed over the keel.

Sleep came suddenly upon Lars; his body sagged downward and forward; in a moment his precarious balance was lost and he fell overboard. The livid wake of the shark flashed toward the boat. But even as he fell Lars awoke, threw himself inboard with a convulsive effort and grasped the keel, felt his feet touch the water and jerked them up in time to save them, by a fraction of a second, from the clashing jaws alongside. The boat rocked with the impact of the powerful brute, and the man had no time to be aware of his racing heart, so intent was he on keeping the boy from rolling into the sea.

The motion of the boat became normal again, the heart of the sailor resumed its regular beat, and the drowsy sea continued its liquid song. Unaware of beauty or terror, the boy lay heedless along the keel while the shark patrolled in circles round about them. That narrow escape had made Lars thoughtful. He did not think he would go to sleep again, but he might, and if he did — what would become of the boy? The question was easily answered.

His hand moved aimlessly to the piece of marline that held the half-empty bottle of water round his neck, and as he touched it an idea flashed into his mind. Drawing his knife from the sheath, he turned his attention to the keel, which was shod with iron a sixteenth of an inch thick, and started probing with the blade between the iron and the wood. As he had expected, there were spaces here and there through which he could pass the blade of the knife. He would cut the marline into four pieces, push the ends under the iron with the blade of the knife, and tie the boy to the keel at the wrists, the belt, the knees, and the ankles. There was barely enough of the marline, but he would make it serve.

He forced the water bottle into the pocket of the boy’s jumper, cut the marline and tied him securely, then sat back in his place, responsible for himself alone. All he had to do now was to stay awake and keep a close lookout for a passing ship, a task of the first importance, which he performed by rising to his feet at intervals and balancing himself while he scanned the horizon eagerly.

Between these anxious searchings Lars sat down and let his thoughts run free, dwelling mostly on the tragic possibilities before them. He would have liked a smoke, but this solace was denied him because his tobacco and matches were soaking wet. His thoughts went back to the days of his childhood, to his father and mother and the girl of whom he had dreamed in the long watches of the night. He caught himself falling asleep again, and shook his head vigorously, raised his eyes and looked at the sea, at the sky with its low-hung moon and scattered stars; and the beauty of the night stabbed at his heart. To leave all this, the happy wandering across the world — never again to tread the deck of a ship!

‘God!’ he whispered, dropping his head on his chest.

He set himself to fight against sleep, but in spite of an iron will his eyes closed wearily, and although he raised his head it sank forward again, his muscles relaxed, and his crossed hands fell away from their saving hold on the edges of the keel. His body swayed perilously as sleep deepened; still, by some instinct that labored while he slumbered, he did not lose his balance, and shortly before dawn he awoke with a start to find his toothache raging again. He sat up and gripped the keel, wondered how long he had slept, and saw the moon just sinking below the rim of the sea. A hint of dawn crept into the sky.

The boy stirred and opened his eyes, raised his head, and looked vacantly at Lars, who swore joyfully and leaned over him.

‘How d’you feel now, Sonny?’

The boy looked about him with wonder in his eyes.

‘Where are we, Lars?’

Lars told him all that had happened, then gave him a small drink out of the bottle.

‘I got this bloomin’ toothache again,’ he complained.

The eastern sky brightened, and the boy asked to change his position. His bones were aching where he lay across the keel, and he spoke of the pain in his head. Lars untied him carefully, and kept an arm around him when he had helped him to sit up. As sea and sky grew rosy with the dawn, Lars peered closely at the water all round the boat.

‘That shark’s gone,’ he exclaimed. He rose suddenly to his feet and swept his eyes round the horizon. To the southward he saw the smoke of a steamer. His breathing stilled, and his heart almost stopped beating as he watched. The toothache vanished. Was she coming in their direction ? In a minute he knew that she was, and, leaning down toward the boy, he cried in great excitement: —

‘A ship, Sonny! A ship!’

Hurriedly pulling off his jumper, he waved it wildly above his head, hailing the approaching steamer at the utmost pitch of his voice: ‘Steamer ahoy-y-y! Steamer ahoy-y-y-y!’

The steamer stopped and lowered a boat, which sped swiftly toward the castaways and took them aboard, where they told their story and were tended by the doctor. When they were alone again in one of the cabins, stretched in quiet safety on luxurious berths, the boy seemed restless and began to talk in a rambling voice. The mate, he said, had threatened to send him to the royal yard if he did not strike the bells on time, and now the royal yard lay under the sea uncounted fathoms deep, no more to swing in the wide, free sky. And the bells would never be struck again. He wondered about this, but after a while the pulse of pain in his wounded head abated, and he fell asleep.