CHAPTER XII
Pete and the Mutiny
The _Titania_ remained at Gib. for thirty-six hours, refilling herfuel-tanks, provisioning, and making good slight damage done duringthe gale.
At six in the morning, having received her clearance papers, theyacht weighed, and was soon bowling along with the strong currentthat sets perpetually eastward into the almost tidelessMediterranean.
Villiers, now officer in charge of the starboard watch, was pacingthe deck with Harborough. For the present there was little to do. The_Titania_ lay close hauled on the port tack; she had plenty ofsea-room, and there were no hidden shoals to worry about. Fontaynewas taking his trick at the wheel, and the rest of the duty watch,having scrubbed decks and "flemished down", were standing easy.
"She shows a clean pair of heels," remarked Villiers, watching thevessel's wake. "I should imagine we're doing a good eight knots."
"Yes," agreed Harborough. "But we won't stand here gazing aft. It's alittle antipathy of mine. Why, I don't know. You read in books ofpeople standing aft and watching the phosphorescent swirl of thepropellers and all that sort of thing. Sentimental! I prefer to lookfor'ard and see what's ahead. There's precious little fun in takinglife retrospectively. It's anticipation--call it hope if youlike--that is the lodestone of life!"
"I wonder if you'll be of the same mind when you near the end of yourjourney," remarked Villiers.
"That I can't say," replied Harborough. "But, candidly speaking,would you care to go through the last five years again?"
"I had some good times," said Jack reflectively. "Perhaps I waslucky."
"Supposing you'd been a Tommy in the trenches?" prompted Harborough.
"Ah, that's a proposition," rejoined Villiers gravely. "I don't thinkI'd care for the idea. In fact, I feel certain I wouldn't. And I knowdozens of fellows who've been and come back, and they are all of thesame opinion--that it was a physical and mental hell. But if they hadto start all over again, they'd do it."
"As a matter of patriotic duty," added Harborough. "We're a weirdnation--slow to adapt ourselves to changing conditions, blunderers inwar and blunderers in peace, and yet, somehow, we come out on top inthe end. The Old Country's in a pretty rotten state just now, Iadmit, but in another twelvemonth or so things will begin to shapethemselves. Eh! what's that?"
O'Loghlin, lightly clad, perspiring freely and reeking with oil, hadcome up from the motor-room and stood before his chief.
"We've a stowaway, sir," he reported.
Harborough knitted his heavy brows.
"Bring him along," he ordered.
The stowaway came quietly. He followed O'Loghlin like a lamb--a tall,powerfully-built negro, on whose ebony features was a smile ofbeatific contentment, in conjunction with a wide-open mouth thatdisplayed a double row of glistening ivories extending almost fromear to ear.
Harborough looked straight at him and said nothing. O'Loghlin,standing behind the black, afterwards maintained that the skipper waslooking through the nigger. In less than fifteen seconds the smilehad vanished and the stowaway was on the verge of tears.
"What are you doing here?" demanded the skipper of the _Titania_.
"I jus' come aboard, sah."
"For what reason?"
"Me tink dis packet is bound for 'Merica. I jus' want to go dere,"and again a broad smile stole over the nigger's face. "Me Britishborn," he continued proudly. "From Hole Town, Barbadoes, which am inBritish West Indies; but I specks you know dat bit, sah."
"And so you thrust your unwelcome carcass on board this yacht,"rejoined Harborough. "Do you know where we are bound for?"
The nigger shook his head.
"Don't much, sah," he replied. "Me work berry hard to please you."
"You'll jolly well have to," declared Harborough grimly. "There's noroom for idlers on this craft. Can you cook?"
"Yes, sah, me berry good cook," assented the black, and immediatelyhe broke into a loud roar of laughter until he had to hold his sidesas the tears streamed down his face.
The laugh was distinctly infectious. There was something soboisterously gusty in the merriment that every one of the _Titania's_crew on deck began smiling in varying degrees of intensity.
"What about your cooking?" inquired Harborough, whose face waspuckered in a multitude of crinkles.
"Me cook aboard de _Lucy M. Partington_, three-masted schooner fromN'Orleans to Naples," explained the black. "Me cook berry well all detime. One day de fellah played a prank, an' put Epsom-salts in thesugar canister. I made Spotted Dick for de Ole Man--pardon, sah, deCaptain, I mean--an' dere you are."
Another tornado of laughter followed.
"And what happened then?" prompted Harborough.
"Ole Man kick me out at Gib.," replied the nigger soberly. "Biggum-boots, too," he added, with painful reminiscence.
"Well, carry on in the galley," ordered the skipper of the _Titania_."None of your Epsom-salt touches here, remember, or you'll find myboot heavier than the _Lucy M. Partington's_ Old Man's. What's yourname?"
"Pete, sah; Pete Johnson."
Harborough waved dismissal. Pete, pulling his woolly forelock,pattered away towards the fore-hatch.
"They didn't have a nigger on board the _Zug_, I suppose?" inquiredHarborough.
"No," replied Villiers. "This fellow seems quite above board."
"He may be a blessing in disguise," commented the baronet. "I don'tenvy the fellows who volunteered for the galley when we get down theRed Sea, and they'll be jolly glad to get out of it."
An hour later Villiers went below and inspected the galley.
Pete had quickly made himself at home. Arrayed in white-canvas jumperand trousers he presented a decidedly better appearance than he haddone in the ragged dungarees. He had not been lacking in energy, forthe pots and pans were burnished brighter than they had been sincethey left the ship-chandler's establishment in far-off Southampton.
He greeted Jack with one of his expansive grins.
"Quite shipshape now, Massa Villers," he exclaimed.
"You're making quite a fine show, Sambo," replied Villiers.
The black's smile vanished and he pouted his lip.
"I would hab you know, Massa Villers," he exclaimed, with studieddignity, "dat my name is Pete, not Sambo. Sambo Yankee niggah; meBritish born."
"Right-o, Pete, I'll remember," replied Villiers; and the blackresumed his customary smile.
"I wonder how he got hold of my name," thought Jack.
It was O'Loghlin who solved that little mystery. O'Loghlin haddiscovered the stowaway hidden behind the main fuel-tank that wasfitted athwartships just abaft the main hold. Pete would not havebeen surprised had the engineer officer dragged him out by his woollyhair and booted him in addition. That was the sort of thing he wasused to aboard the _Lucy M. Partington_, but nothing of the kindhappened, and Pete felt grateful. He described in detail how hecontrived to get on board without being "spotted" by any of the watchon deck. After he had been rated ship's cook the nigger askedO'Loghlin to tell him the names of every man on board, and, with aretentive memory that many West Indian negroes possess, Pete "hadthem all off pat".
Throughout the greater part of the day the wind held, but towards theend of the first dog watch it fell a flat calm with considerablehaze. Away to the south'ard the African coast, although only fivemiles distant, was lost to view. Night was approaching, so in orderto keep clear of the unlighted coast the _Titania's_ course wasaltered a full point, and the motors were started to give hersteerage-way.
"We'll have the canvas stowed," decided Harborough; "one never knowswhat's behind the mist. The glass is a bit jumpy, I notice."
Accordingly the sails were lowered and stowed, and throughout thenight the _Titania_ held on under power, riding over the long, sullenground-swell that was a sign of a gale raging not so many miles off.The sea was highly phosphorescent, and, although from crest to crestthe rollers measured a full hundred yards, not a catspaw ruffled theundulating surface.
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p; Morning came and with it no change in the weather. A couple of mileson the port bow was a large three-masted schooner with her canvasslatting violently as she wallowed in the long swell. From her mizentruck was displayed a two-flag signal.
"Stand by with the code-book," cautioned Beverley, who was in chargeof the deck.
He levelled his binoculars at the vessel. There was no need for thecode-book. Every seaman knows the significance of the lettersYF--Mutiny.
"On deck both watches," shouted Beverley. "Close up with theanswering pennant."
The order was obeyed in double-quick time, the watch below turningout in a state of attire that could not by any stretch of theimagination be termed uniform. Harborough, stopping only to donoilskin coat and sea-boots over his pyjamas, came on deck.
"Serve out the arms, Mr. Beverley," he said, "and hoist a signalsaying we are sending a boat. Mr. Villiers, will you take half adozen armed men and proceed to yonder vessel?"
Almost as soon as the signal flags GTM--"I am sending a boat"--weretoggled and hoisted, the _Titania's_ whaler was swung outboard readyfor lowering, and under power the yacht rapidly bore down upon themutinous schooner.
"Golly!" exclaimed Pete, who, in the midst of preparing breakfast,had answered to the hail for all hands on deck. "Dat's the ole _LucyM. Partington_."
Before the _Titania_ had entirely lost way the whaler's roundedbilges hit the water with a resounding smack. The lower blocks of thefalls were disengaged, and the bowman adroitly fended off.
"Give way, lads!" ordered Villiers.
Fifty steady strokes sufficed to lay the boat alongside theschooner's port quarter, from which a rope-ladder had been dropped byher now considerably-relieved skipper.
Leaving one hand in the whaler, Villiers and the rest of the boat'screw swarmed up the side and gained the _Lucy M. Partington's_ poop.The mutiny was over. The rebellious hands had been overawed by thesight of the approaching armed boat's crew.
The Old Man, a typical New Englander, with a goatee beard and hugeleather sea-boots (Villiers found himself wondering how the skippercould wear heavy foot-gear on a hot day like that), left hisstrategical position, to wit, a round house abaft the mizen, and wasbellowing incoherencies at a knot of sullen seamen clustered underthe break of the raised fo'c'sle. With him were the two mates andthree apprentices, who looked now as if they were enjoying the scene,and a couple of grizzled, bald-headed seamen.
"What's all this fuss about, skipper?" inquired Villiers genially.
"Tarnation blue snakes take the pizonous reptiles," bellowed the OldMan. "That's the durned skunk I want to get at; that skulking Finn."
He pointed to a gigantic man standing behind, but towering head andshoulders above the cosmopolitan crowd of malcontents.
"We've had just about enuff of your tarnation tricks, Cap'n Abe,"shouted one of the mutineers. "Nary a square meal since you hiked ourcook over the side."
"Guess I didn't boot the nigger jus' for nuthin'," explained CaptainAbe to his rescuers. "The nigger tried to pizen me."
"There ain't as good a cook on board, an' there won't be,"vociferated the mutineer. "Pete could cook, and there ain't no sayin'to the contrary, I guess."
So that was the trouble. In putting Pete ashore at Gib. the skipperof the _Lucy M. Partington_ had laid up a rod in pickle for himself.No doubt the Old Man honestly thought that the nigger haddeliberately put Epsom-salt into his pudding; but he had made amistake in not taking the trouble to investigate Pete's story. Andsince the cook was a cook, the crew soon found out to their cost whatit means to have badly-prepared meals.
Matters came quickly to a head. One of the men approached theskipper, holding in his hands a saucepan of watery potatoes in whichfloated hard balls that were supposed to be dumplings, and asked himwhether he considered this sort of food good enough for human beings.
Captain Abe replied by booting the saucepan from the fellow's handsand throwing most of its contents into the grumbler's face. Thatstarted what soon developed into a serious affray, and how farmatters would have gone remained questionable. The appearance of the_Titania_, which the mutineers mistook for a Government patrol-boat(of which some were yet employed on mine-sweeping work in theMediterranean), rather took the wind out of their sails.
Villiers called the Yankee skipper aside.
"Look here," he said, "I don't quite know what you want me to do."
"Put the varmints into irons, I guess," suggested Captain Abe.
"Then who'll work the ship?" asked Jack. "There is bad weathercoming, judging by the glass and the look of things. Short-handed,you'll be in a jolly tight corner. Those fellows have a grievance,although they were in the wrong to kick up a shindy. I can't lend youany hands, so what are you going to do?"
"Dashed if I know," admitted Captain Abe, in perplexity. "Say, whatwould you?"
"You've been at sea a jolly sight longer than I have, I should say,"continued Villiers. "So it seems like teaching my grandmother to tellyou how to handle men. Meet them half-way. If you've a grievance andthey have one, there's always the Consular Courts to appeal to.That's better than jumping round the deck with sheath-knives andrevolvers."
"Guess you're about right," considered Captain Abe. "Just you sound'em for me, young man. For my part, I'm willin'."
Villiers went for'ard. In five minutes he had "talked over" the crew.They, too, were willing to carry on as before, on the understandingthat a competent cook was shipped at the next port they touched.
Jack, proud of his moral victory, shook hands with the Yankee skipperand the two mates, and returned to the _Titania_.
"It's all right, now, sir," he reported. "They're carrying on."
At that moment the _Titania_, forging slowly ahead, was passing underthe stern and within half a cable's length of the becalmed _Lucy M.Partington_.
The latter's skipper caught sight of Pete sitting contentedly on thecat-head. His eyes opened in utter amazement.
"Pete!" he hailed. "Come you back!"
The nigger shook his woolly head.
"You kick me out, Cap'n Abe!" he reminded him.
"Fifty dollars, Pete, if you swim for it," almost implored theYankee, finding as he thought an easy solution to the presentdifficulty.
Pete's head shook until his teeth almost rattled in his capaciousjaws.
"Dere's no leather sea-boots with nails in 'em on dis vessel," hereplied. "Only indy-rubber. 'Specks I know where dis nigger amcomf'ble."
Then, using an expression that he had picked up from his newacquaintances on the _Titania_, he added: "Cheerio, you deah,priceless ole thing!"