The Captain of the Kansas Read online

  CHAPTER II

  WHEREIN THE CAPTAIN KEEPS TO HIS OWN QUARTERS

  Doctor Christobal brought some additional details to the dinner-table.He was not the ship's doctor. The _Kansas_, built for freight ratherthan passengers, did not carry a surgeon on her roll; Dr. Christobal'spresence was due to Mr. Baring's solicitude in his daughter's behalf.It chanced that the courtly and gray-haired Spanish physician hadrelinquished his practise in Chile, and was about to pay along-promised visit to a married daughter in Barcelona. Friendship,not unaided by a good fee, induced him to travel by the _Kansas_.

  He had been called on to attend Mr. Boyle and the wounded Chilean, andhe reported now that the chief officer's injury was trifling, but theChilean's wound might incapacitate him during the remainder of thevoyage.

  "So far as I can gather," he said, "Mr. Boyle had a narrow escape.These half-breeds have a nice anatomical knowledge of the situation ofthe lung; they also know the easiest way to reach it with a sharpinstrument. Captain Courtenay fired as the knife fell, otherwise ourfirst mate would have attended his own funeral this evening."

  "What was the cause of the affair?" Isobel asked.

  "The man is not one of the ship's crew, I understand. His name isFrascuelo, and it appears that he was engaged to place some bunker coalaboard early this morning. He says that he was drugged, and hisclothes stolen; that he came off to the ship at a late hour, and thatsome one flung him headlong into a hold which, luckily for him, wasnearly full of cotton bales. He was stunned by the fall, and were itnot for Captain Courtenay's custom of having all hatches taken off anda thorough examination of the cargo made before the holds are finallybattened down for the voyage, Frascuelo might now be in a tight placein more than one sense."

  Dr. Christobal was proud of his idiomatic English. He spoke thelanguage with the careless freedom of a Londoner.

  "Frascuelo seems to have passed an eventful day," said the littleFrench Comte, who had been waiting anxiously for a chance to join inthe conversation.

  "But why should he want to kill poor Mr. Boyle?" inquired Isobel, aftergiving the Frenchman an encouraging glance. Incidentally, she smiledat Elsie. "Why puzzle one's brains over foreign tongues when all theworld speaks English?" she telegraphed.

  "Mr. Boyle is a peculiar person," said the doctor dryly. "I happen tohave known him during some years. You and I might regard him as a manof few words, but he has acquired a wonderful vocabulary for thebenefit of sailor-men. I believe he can swear in every known lingo.His accomplishment in that direction no doubt annoyed Frascuelo, whobecame frantic when he heard that the ship would not call at any SouthAmerican port. I imagine, too, that the unfortunate fellow is stillsuffering from the drug which, he says, was administered to him.Anyhow, you know how the affair terminated."

  "I, for one, think some consideration might have been shown him," saidElsie.

  "There is no time for argument when a Chilean draws a knife, MissMaxwell."

  "But, if his story is true--"

  "There never yet was a stowaway who did not invent a plausible yarn.Nevertheless, I believe, and Mr. Boyle agrees with me, that the man isnot lying."

  They felt the ship swing round on a new course, and the rays of thesetting sun lit up the saloon table through the open starboard ports.

  "Due south now, ladies!" cried Dr. Christobal cheerily. "We haverounded Cape Cardones. We practically follow the seventy-sixth degreeuntil we approach Evangelistas Island. Thus far we are in the opensea. Then we pick our way through the Straits discovered by thatdaring Portuguese, Fernando de Magallanes, to whose memory I alwaysdrink heartily once we are clear of the Cape of the Eleven ThousandVirgins. I never pass through that gloomy defile without marveling athis courage, and thinking that he deserved a better fate than murder atthe hands of some painted savage in the Philippines. Peace be to hisashes!"

  And the doctor lifted his glass of red wine with a quasi-masonic ritualwhich lent solemnity to his discourse.

  "You are a long way ahead of your toast," said Isobel.

  "Just as Magellan was ahead of his times," was the rejoinder.

  "Yet he was a man of leisurely habit," put in Elsie, who found Dr.Christobal's old-world manners full of charm and repose.

  "How so?" said he, puzzled, for the worthy Portuguese navigator wasnotoriously a swashbuckler.

  "Otherwise he never could have christened any unhappy promontory bysuch a long-winded name," she explained.

  "Perhaps he met a contrary wind in that region," said Christobal,laughing. "Monsieur de Poincilit here, were he in a very bad temper,might exclaim, 'Mille diables!' Why should not our excellent Fernandorail against the almost inconceivable fickleness which could bedisplayed by eleven times as many young ladies?"

  "I came out last time on the _Orellana_, and I don't even rememberpassing such a place," said Isobel. She was a Chilean born and bred,but she always affected European vagueness as to the topography ofSouth America. Dr. Christobal knew this weakness of hers; he alsoremembered her beautiful half-caste mother, from whom Isobel inheritedher flashing eyes, her purple-red lips, and a skin in which theexquisite flush of terra-cotta on her checks merged into the delicatepallor of forehead and neck.

  But, being a tactful man, he only answered: "Your English sailors, mydear, who gruffly dubbed the adjacent point 'Cape Dungeness,' haveshortened Magellan's mouthful into 'Cape Virgins.'--Yet, Ursula was aBritish saint, and her memory ought to be revered, if only because itkeeps alive a classic pun."

  A born raconteur, he paused.

  "Go right ahead, doctor," came a voice from the lower end of the table.

  "Well, the story runs that Princess Ursula fled from Britain to Rome toescape marriage with a pagan--"

  "How odd!" interrupted Isobel, and Elsie alone understood the drift ofher comment.

  "Not at all odd if she didn't happen to like him," said Christobal."She reached Cologne, and was martyred there by the Huns. Longafterwards a stone was found with the inscription _Ursula etUndecimilla Virgines_, which was incorrectly translated into 'Ursulaand her Eleven Thousand Virgins.' Some later critic pointed out that amissing comma after Undecimilla, the name of a handmaid, made all thedifference, assuming that two young ladies were a more reasonable andprobable number than eleven thousand. But what legend ever cared for acomma, or reached a full stop? If you go to Cologne, the verger of theChurch of St. Ursula will show you the bones of the whole party inglass cases, and, equally amazing, the town of Baoza in Spain claims tobe the birthplace of the lot. Clearly, Magellan had a man from Baozaon board his ship."

  "All mail steamers ought to provide a lecturer on things in general andinteresting places passed in particular," said Isobel.

  Dr. Christobal bowed.

  "I am sure that some of the officers of the _Orellana_ could have toldyou the history of Cape Virgins, but they, not to mention the otheryoung gentlemen in the passenger list, would certainly find you bettersport than puzzling your pretty head about the ship's landmarks."

  "I also came out on the _Orellana_, but there was no Miss Baring to beseen," murmured the Frenchman.

  "You had a dull trip, I take it?" said the doctor, quietly.

  "I was very ill," was the response; but, after a stare of surprise, hejoined in the resultant laugh quite good-naturedly.

  "It is a standing joke that my countrymen are poor sailors," heprotested, "and that is strange, don't you think, seeing that Francehas the second largest navy in the world?"

  "Console yourself, monsieur," said Christobal. "Three greatsea-captains, Nelson, Cook, and, it is said, Columbus himself, alwayspaid tribute to Neptune. And, if I am not mistaken," he added,glancing through the port windows, "we shall all have our staminatested before twenty-four hours have passed."

  Heads were turned and necks craned to see what had induced thisunexpected prophecy. Behind the distant coast-line the inner giants ofthe Andes threw heavenward their rugged outlines, with many a peak andglacier glinting in vivid colors against a sky so
clear and blue thatthey seemed strangely near.

  "Yes, this wonderful atmosphere of ours is enchanting," said thedoctor, when assailed by a chorus of doubts. "But it carries itsdeceptive smiles too far. The very beauty of the Cordillera is a signof storm. I am sorry to be a croaker; yet we are running into a gale."

  "I shall ask the captain," pouted Isobel, rising.

  The Count twisted his mustache. He knew that both ladies were in theforbidden territory of the bridge when the fracas occurred.

  "You, perhaps, are a good sailor?" said he, addressing Elsie.

  "I am afraid to boast," she answered. "I have been in what was calleda Number Eight gale, whatever that may mean, and weathered itsplendidly, but I am older now."

  "It cannot have been long ago, seeing that you recall it so exactly."

  "It was six years ago, and I was seventeen then," said Elsie, her eyeswandering to the purple and gold of the far-off mountains.

  "But you are English. You are therefore at home on the rolling deep,"murmured Monsieur de Poincilit, confidentially. She did not endeavorto interpret his expressive glance, though he seemed to convey morethan he said.

  "Not so much at home at sea as you are in my language," she replied,and she turned to Dr. Christobal, whom she had already known slightlyin Valparaiso.

  "Are you coming on deck?" she inquired. "I am sure you are a mine ofinformation on Chile, and I want to extract some of the ore while theland is still visible. It is already assuming the semblance of adream."

  "You are not saying a last farewell to Valparaiso, I hope?" said herelderly companion, as they quitted the salon.

  "I think so. I have no ties there, save those of sentiment. I shallnot return, unless, if a doubtful fortune permits, I am able some dayto revisit two graves which are dear to me."

  There was a little catch in her voice, and the doctor was far toosympathetic to endeavor forthwith to divert her sad thoughts.

  "I knew your father," he said gently. "He was a most admirable man,but quite unsuited to the environment of a new country, where thedollar is god, and an unstable deity at that. He was swindledoutrageously by men who stand high in the community to-day. But you,Miss Maxwell, with your knowledge of Spanish and your otheracquirements, should do better here than in Europe, provided, that is,you mean to earn your own living."

  "I am proud to hear you speak well of my father," she said. "And I amwell aware that he was badly treated in business. I fear, too, thathis advocacy of the rights of the Indians brought him into disfavor.Of all his possessions the only remnant left to me is a barrenmountain, with a slice of fertile valley, in the Quillota district. Ityields me the magnificent revenue of two hundred dollars per annum."

  "How in the world did he come to own land there?"

  "It was a gift from the Naquilla tribe. He defeated an attempt made tooust them by a big land company. The company has since asked me tosell the property, and offered me a fair price, too, as the cultivableland is a very small strip, but it would be almost like betraying thecause for which he fought, would it not?"

  "Yes, indeed," agreed the doctor, though his heart and not his headdictated the reply. "May I ask you to tell me your plans for thefuture?" he went on.

  "Well, when Mr. Baring heard I was going to England, he was good enoughto promise me employment in his London agency as Spanish correspondent.That will fill in two days a week. The rest I can devote to art. Ipaint a little, and draw with sufficient promise to warrant study, I amtold. Anyhow, I am weary of teaching; I prefer to be a pupil."

  "I cannot imagine what the young men of Valparaiso were thinking of toallow a girl like you to slip off in this fashion," said Christobalwith a smile.

  "Most of them hold firmly to the belief that a wife's wedding-dressshould be made of gilt-edged scrip."

  "Poor material--very poor material out of which to construct weddedhappiness. And as to my young friend, Isobel? She joins her aunt inLondon, I hear?"

  "That is the present arrangement. She means to have a good time,especially in Paris. I should like to live in Paris myself. Dear oldsmoke-laden London does not appeal so thoroughly to the artist. Yet, Iam content--yes, quite content."

  "Then you have gained the best thing in the world," cried the doctor,throwing out his arms expansively.

  The two became good friends as the voyage progressed. Christobal wasexceedingly well informed, and delighted in a thoughtful listener likeElsie. Isobel, tiring at times of the Count, would join in theirconversation, and display a spasmodic interest in the topics theydiscussed. There were only six other passengers, a Baptist missionaryand his wife, three mining engineers, and an English globe-trotter, asingular being who appeared to have roamed the entire earth, but whoseexperiences were summed up in two words--every place he had seen waseither "Fair" or "Rotten."

  Even Isobel failed to draw him further, and she said one day, in atemper, after a spirited attempt to extract some of his storedimpressions: "The man reminds me of one of those dummy books you seeoccasionally, bound in calf and labeled 'Gazetteer of the World.' Whenyou try to open a volume you find that it is made of wood."

  So they nicknamed him "Mr. Wood," and Elsie once inadvertentlyaddressed him by the name.

  "What do you think of the weather, Mr. Wood?" she asked him atbreakfast.

  He chanced to notice that she was speaking to him.

  "Rotten," he said.

  Perhaps he wondered why Miss Maxwell flushed and the others laughed.But, in actual fact, he was not far wrong in his curious choice of anadjective that morning. Dr. Christobal's dismal foreboding had beenjustified on the second day out. Leaden clouds, a sullen sea, andoccasional puffs of a stinging breeze from the southwest, offered asorry exchange for the sunny skies of Chile.

  Though the _Kansas_ was not a fast ship, she could have made theentrance to the Straits on the evening of the fourth day were notCaptain Courtenay wishful to navigate the most dangerous part of thenarrows by daylight. His intent, therefore, was to pick up theEvangelistas light about midnight, and then crack ahead at fourteenknots, so as to be off Felix Point on Desolation Island by dawn.

  This was not only a prudent and seamanlike course but it would conduceto the comfort of the passengers. The ship was now running into astiff gale. Each hour the sea became heavier, and even the eightthousand tons of the _Kansas_ felt the impact of the giant rollers onher starboard bow. Dinner, therefore, promised to be a meal of muchdiscomfort, cheered only by the knowledge that as soon as the vesselreached the lee of Desolation Island the giant waves of the Pacificwould lose their power, and all on board would enjoy a quiet night'srest.

  There were no absentees at the table. Dr. Christobal strove to enliventhe others with the promise of peace ere many hours had passed.

  "Pay no heed to those fellows!" he cried, as the ship quivered underthe blow of a heavy sea, and they heard the thud of many tons of waterbreaking over the bows and fore hatch, while the defeated monsterwashed the tightly screwed ports with a venomous swish. "They cannotharm us now. Let us rather thank kindly Providence which providedMagellan's water-way; think what it would mean were we compelled toweather the Cape."

  "I am beginning to catch on to the reasonableness of that toast ofyours, doctor," said one of the mining engineers, a young American. "Ihappen to be a tee-totaler, but I don't mind opening a bottle of thebest for the general welfare when we shove our nose past the Cape ofthe large number of young and unprotected females."

  Christobal raised his hand.

  "All in good time," he said. "Never halloo for the prairie until youare clear of the forest. If the wind remains in its present quarter,we are fortunate. Should it happen to veer round to the eastward, andyou see the rocks of Tierra del Fuego lashed by the choppy sea that canrun even through a land-locked channel, you will be ready to open twobottles as a thanks-offering. Is this your first trip round by thesouth?"

  "Yes, I crossed by way of Panama. Guess a mule-track over the Sierrasis a heap better
than the Pacific in a gale. Jee-whizz!"

  A spiteful sea sprang at the _Kansas_ and shook her from stem to stern.The ship groaned and creaked as though she were in pain; she staggeredan instant, and then swung irresistibly forward with a fierce plungethat made the plates dance and cutlery rattle in the fiddles.

  "I suppose we must endure five hours of this," said Elsie, bravely.

  "I don't like it. Why does not Captain Courtenay, or even Mr. Boyle,put in an appearance? I have hardly seen either of them since the dayI came aboard."

  Isobel was petulant, and perhaps a little frightened. She had not yetreached that stage of confidence familiar to all who cross the openseas. The first period of a gale is terrifying. Later there comes anindifference born of supreme trust in the ship. The steady onwardthrust of the engines--the unwavering path across the raging vortex oftumbling gray waters--the orderly way in which the members of the crewfollow their duties--these are quietly persistent factors in thegradual soothing of the nerves. Many a timid passenger, after lyingawake through a night of terror, has gone to sleep when the watch beganto swab the deck overhead. Not even a Spartan sailor would begin towash woodwork if the ship were sinking.

  "All ladies like to see an officer in the saloon during a storm,"commented Christobal. "I plead guilty to a weakness in that directionmyself, though I know he is much better employed on the bridge."

  "The captain cannot be on the bridge always," said Isobel.

  "He is seldom far from it in bad weather, if he is faithful to histrust. And I fancy we would all admit that Captain Courtenay--"

  A curious shock, sharper and altogether more penetrating than theThor's hammer blow of a huge wave, sounded loud and menacing in theirears. The ship trembled violently, and then became strangely still.The least experienced traveler on board knew that the engines hadstopped. They felt a long lurch to port when the next sea climbed overthe bows; at once the _Kansas_ righted herself and rode on even keel,while the stress and turmoil of her fight against wind and wave passedaway into a sustained silence.

  The half-caste stewards glanced at each other and drew together inwhispering groups, but the chief steward, an Englishman, who had turnedto leave the saloon, changed his mind and uttered a low growl ofcommand which sent his subordinates' attention, if not their thoughts,back to their work. In the strained hush, the running along the deckof men in heavy sea-boots was painfully audible. Water could be heardpouring through the scuppers. Steam was rushing forth somewhere withvehement bluster. These sounds only accentuated the extraordinarytruce in the fight of ship against sea. The _Kansas_ was strickendumb, if not dead.

  "Something has gone wrong," said Elsie in a low voice.

  Doctor Christobal nodded carelessly.

  "A burst steam-pipe, probably. Such things will happen at times. Weare hove to for the moment."

  He traded on the ignorance of his hearers. The chief steward heard hisexplanation and looked at him fixedly. Christobal caught the glance.

  "I suppose we shall lose an hour or so now?" he asked.

  "Yes, sir. It will be all right by the time you have finished dinner."

  The meal drew to its close without much further talk. The Americanengineer was the first to rise, but the chief steward whispered in hisear; he returned to the table.

  "Say," he said calmly, "we can't quit yet. The companion-hatch isclosed. We must remain here a bit."

  "Do you mean that we are battened down?" demanded Isobel, shrilly, andher face lost some of its beauty in an ashen pallor.

  "Something of the sort, Miss Baring. Anyway, we can't go on deck."

  "But--I insist on being told what is the matter."

  The American knew little of ships, but he knew a great deal aboutmines, and, in a mine, if an accident happens, the man in charge cannotdesert his post to give information to those who are anxious for it.So he replied laconically:

  "Guess the captain will tell us all about it after a while, MissBaring."

  "Que diable! I feel like the rat in the trap," said Count Edouard,suppressed excitement rendering his English less fluent.

  At another time the phrase would have sent a ripple of amusementthrough that cheery company. Now, no one smiled. They knew too wellwhat he meant to pay heed to the mere form of his words. No matter howlarge or sumptuously equipped the trap, the point of view of the ratwas new to them.