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twg_000000036800 | natural excitement by a superstitious negro, a little tall talk that meant nothing. It must have been the glamour of the adventure that had deceived me; that, and the unusual stage setting and costuming. Certainly few men would work hard for eight months without a murmur, without a chance to look about them. In that, of course, I was deceived | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036801 | by my inexperience. I realised later the wonderful effect Captain Selover threw away with his empty brandy bottles. The crew might grumble and plot during the watch below; but when Captain Ezra Selover said _work_, they worked. He had been saying work, for eight months. They had, from force of experience, obeyed him. It was all very simple. IX THE | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036802 | EMPTY BRANDY BOTTLE So there I was at once deprived of my chief support. Although no danger seemed imminent, nevertheless the necessity of acting on my own initiative and responsibility oppressed me somewhat. Truth to tell, after the first, I was more relieved than dismayed at the captain's resolution to stay aboard. His drinking habit was growing on him, and | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036803 | afloat or ashore he was now little more than a figurehead, so that my chief asset as far as he was concerned, was rather his reputation than his direct influence. In contact with the men, I dreaded lest sooner or later he do something to lessen or destroy the awe in which they held him. Of course Dr. Schermerhorn had | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036804 | been mistaken in his man: A real captain of men would have risen to circumstances wherever he found them. But who could have foretold? Captain Selover had been a rascal always, but a successful and courageous rascal. He had run desperate chances, dominated desperate crews. Who could know that a crumble of island beach and six months ashore would turn | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036805 | him into what he had become? Yet I believe such cases are not uncommon in other walks of life. A man and his work combine to mean something; yet both may be absolutely useless when separated. It was the weak link---- I put in some time praying earnestly that the eyes of the crew might be blinded, and that the | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036806 | doctor would finish his experiments before the cauldron could boil up again. My first act as real commander was to announce holiday. My idea was that the island would keep the men busy for a while. Then I would assign them more work to do. They proposed at once a tour into the interior. We started up the west coast. | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036807 | After three or four miles along a mesa formation where often we had to circle long detours to avoid the gullies, we came upon another short beach, and beyond it a series of ledges on which basked several hundred seals. They did not seem alarmed. In fact one old bull, scarred by many battles, made toward us. We left him, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036808 | scaled the cliff, and turned up a broad, pleasant valley toward the interior. There the later lava flow had been deflected. All that showed of the original eruption were occasional red outcropping rocks. Soil and grass had overlaid the mineral. Scattered trees were planted throughout the flat. Cacti and semi-tropical bushes mingled with brush on the rounded side hills. A | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036809 | number of brilliant birds fluttered at our approach. Suddenly Handy Solomon, who was in advance, stopped and pointed to the crest of the hill. A file of animals moved along the sky line. "Mutton!" said he, "or the devil's a preacher!" "Sheep!" cried Thrackles. "Where did they come from?" "_Golden Horn_," I suggested. "Remember that wide, empty deck forward? They | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036810 | carried sheep there." The men separated, intending fresh meat. The affair was ridiculous. These sheep had become as wild as deer. Our surrounding party with its silly bared knives could only look after them open-mouthed, as they skipped nimbly between its members. "Get a gun of the Old Man, Mr. Eagen," suggested Pulz, "and we'll have something besides salt horse | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036811 | and fish." I nodded. We continued. The island was like this as far as we went. When we climbed a ridge, we found ourselves looking down on a spider-web of other valleys and caons of the same nature, all diverging to broad downs and a jump into the sea, all converging to the outworks that guarded the volcano with its | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036812 | canopy of vapour. On our way home we cut across the higher country and the heads of the caons until we found ourselves looking down on the valley and Dr. Schermerhorn's camp. The steam from the volcanic blowholes swayed below us. Through its rifts we saw the tops of the buildings. Presently we made out Percy Darrow, dressed in overalls, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036813 | his sleeves rolled back, and carrying a retort. He walked, very preoccupied, to one of the miniature craters, where he knelt and went through some operation indistinguishable at the distance. I looked around to see my companions staring at him fascinated, their necks craned out, their bodies drawn back into hiding. In a moment he had finished, and carried the | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036814 | retort carefully into the laboratory. The men sighed and stood erect, once more themselves. As we turned away Perdosa voiced what must have been in the minds of all. "A man could climb down there," said he. "Why should he want to?" I demanded sharply. "_Quien sabe_?" shrugged he. We turned in silence toward the beach. Each brooded his thoughts. | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036815 | The sight of that man dressed in overalls, carrying on some mysterious business, brought home to each of us the fact that our expedition had an object, as yet unknown to us. The thought had of late dropped into the background. For my part I had been so immersed in the adventure and the labour and the insistent need of | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036816 | the hour that I had forgotten why I had come. Dr. Schermerhorn's purpose was as inscrutable to me as at first. What had I accomplished? The men, too, seemed struck with some such idea. There were no yarns about the camp fire that night. Percy Darrow did not appear, for which I was sincerely sorry. His presence might have created | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036817 | a diversion. For some unknown reason all my old apprehensions, my sense of impending disaster, had returned to me strengthened. In the firelight the Nigger's sullen face looked sinister, Pulz's nervous white countenance looked vicious. Thrackles' heavy, bulldog expression was threatening, Perdosa's Mexican cast fit for knife work in the back. And Handy Solomon, stretched out, leaning on his elbow, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036818 | with his red headgear, his snaky hair, his hook nose, his restless eye and his glittering steel claw--the glow wrote across his aura the names of Kid, Morgan, Blackbeard. They sat smoking, staring into the fire with mesmerised eyes. The silence got on my nerves I arose impatiently and walked down the pale beach, where the stars glimmered in splashes | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036819 | along the wettest sands. The black silhouette of the hills against the dark blue of the night sky; the white of breakers athwart the indistinct heave of the ocean, a faint light marking the position of the _Laughing Lass_--that was everything in the world. I made out some object rolled about in the edge of the wash. At the cost | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036820 | of wet feet I rescued it. It was an empty brandy bottle. [Illustration: "These sheep had become as wild as deer"] X CHANGE OF MASTERS The next day we continued our explorations by land, and so for a week after that. I thought it best not to relinquish all authority, so I organised regular expeditions, and ordered their direction. The | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036821 | men did not object. It was all good enough fun to them. The net results were that we found a nesting place of sea birds--too late in the season for eggs; a hot spring near enough camp to be useful; and that was about all. The sheep were the only animals on the island, although there were several sorts of | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036822 | birds. In general, the country was as I have described it--either volcanic or overlaid with fertile earth. In any case it was caon and hill. We soon grew tired of climbing and turned our attention to the sea. With the surf boat we skirted the coast. It was impregnable except in three places: our own beach, that near the seal | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036823 | rookery, and on the south side of the island. We landed at each one of these places. But returning close to the coast we happened upon a cave mouth more or less guarded by an outlying rock. The day was calm, so we ventured in. At first I thought it merely a gorge in the rock, but even while peering | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036824 | for the end wall we slipped under the archway and found ourselves in a vast room. Our eyes were dazzled so we could make out little at first. But through the still, clear water the light filtered freely from below, showing the bottom as through a sea glass. We saw the fish near the entrance, and coral and sea growths | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036825 | of marvellous vividness. They waved slowly as in a draught of air. The medium in which they floated was absolutely invisible, for, of course, there were no reflections from its surface. We seemed to be suspended in mid-air, and only when the dipping oars made rings could we realise that anything sustained us. Suddenly the place let loose in pandemonium. | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036826 | The most fiendish cries, groans, shrieks, broke out, confusing themselves so thoroughly with their own echoes that the volume of sound was continuous. Heavy splashes shook the water. The boat rocked. The invisible surface was broken into facets. We shrank, terrified. From all about us glowed hundreds of eyes like coals of fire--on a level with us, above us, almost | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036827 | over our heads. Two by two the coals were extinguished. Below us the bottom was clouded with black figures, darting rapidly like a school of minnows beneath a boat. They darkened the coral and the sands and the glistening sea growths just as a cloud temporarily darkens the landscape--only the occultations and brightenings succeeded each other much more swiftly. We | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036828 | stared stupefied, our thinking power blurred by the incessent whirl of motion and noise. Suddenly Thrackles laughed aloud. "Seals!" he shouted through his trumpeted hands. Our eyes were expanding to the twilight. We could make out the arch of the room, its shelves, and hollows, and niches. Lying on them we could discern the seals, hundreds and hundreds of them, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036829 | all staring at us, all barking and bellowing. As we approached, they scrambled from their elevations, and, diving to the bottom, scurried to the entrance of the cave. We lay on our oars for ten minutes. Then silence fell. There persisted a tiny _drip, drip, drip_ from some point in the darkness. It merely accentuated the hush. Suddenly from far | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036830 | in the interior of the hill there came a long, hollow _boo-o-o-m_! It reverberated, roaring. The surge that had lifted our boat some minutes before thus reached its journey's end. The chamber was very lofty. As we rowed cautiously in, it lost nothing of its height, but something in width. It was marvellously coloured, like all the volcanic rocks of | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036831 | this island. In addition some chemical drip had thrown across its vividness long gauzy streamers of white. We rowed in as far as the faintest daylight lasted us. The occasional reverberating _boom_ of the surges seemed as distant as ever. This was beyond the seal rookery on the beach. Below it we entered an open cleft of some size to | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036832 | another squarer cave. It was now high tide; the water extended a scant ten fathoms to end on an interior shale beach. The cave was a perfectly straight passage following the line of the cleft. How far in it reached we could not determine, for it, too, was full of seals, and after we had driven them back a hundred | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036833 | feet or so their fiery eyes scared us out. We did not care to put them at bay. The next day I rowed out to the _Laughing Lass_ and got a rifle. I found the captain asleep in his bunk, and did not disturb him. Perdosa and I, with infinite pains, tracked and stalked the sheep, of which I killed | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036834 | one. We found the mutton excellent. The hunting was difficult, and the quarry, as time went on, more and more suspicious, but henceforward we did not lack for fresh meat. Furthermore we soon discovered that fine trolling was to be had outside the reef. We rigged a sail for the extra dory, and spent much of our time at the | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036835 | sport. I do not know the names of the fish. They were very gamy indeed, and ran from five to an indeterminate number of pounds in weight. Above fifty pounds our light tackle parted, so we had no means of knowing how large they may have been. Thus we spent very pleasantly the greater part of two weeks. At the | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036836 | end of that time I made up my mind that it would be just as well to get back to business. Accordingly I called Perdosa and directed him to sort and clear of rust the salvaged chain cable. He refused flatly. I took a step toward him. He drew his knife and backed away. "Perdosa," said I firmly, "put up | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036837 | that knife." "No," said he. I pulled the saw-barrelled Colt's and raised it slowly to a level with his breast. "Perdosa," I repeated, "drop that knife." The crisis had come, but my resolution was fully prepared for it. I should not have cared greatly if I had had to shoot the man--as I certainly should have done had he disobeyed. | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036838 | There would then have been one less to deal with in the final accounting, which strangely enough I now for a moment never doubted would come. I had not before aimed at a man's life, so you can see to what tensity the baffling mystery had strung me. Perdosa hesitated a fraction of an instant. I really think he might | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036839 | have chanced it, but Handy Solomon, who had been watching me closely, growled at him. "Drop it, you fool!" he said. Perdosa let fall the knife. "Now, get at that cable," I commanded, still at white heat. I stood over him until he was well at work, then turned back to set tasks for the other men. Handy Solomon met | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036840 | me halfway. "Begging your pardon, Mr. Eagen," said he, "I want a word with you." "I have nothing to say to you," I snapped, still excited. "It ain't reasonable not to hear a man's say," he advised in his most conciliatory manner, "I'm talking for all of us." He paused a moment, took my silence for consent, and went ahead. | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036841 | "Begging your pardon, Mr. Eagen," said he, "we ain't going to do any more useless work. There ain't no laziness about us, but we ain't going to be busy at nothing. All the camp work and the haulin' and cuttin' and cleanin' and the rest of it, we'll do gladly. But we ain't goin' to pound any more cable, and | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036842 | you can kiss the Book on that." "You mean to mutiny?" I asked. He made a deprecatory gesture. "Put us aboard ship, sir, and let us hear the Old Man give his orders, and you'll find no mutiny in us. But here ashore it's different. Did the Old Man give orders to pound the cable?" "I represent the captain," I | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036843 | stammered. He caught the evasion. "I thought so. Well, if you got any kick on us, please, sir, go get the Old Man. If he says to our face, pound cable, why pound cable it is. Ain't that right, boys?" They murmured something. Perdosa deliberately dropped his hammer and joined the group. My hand strayed again toward the sawed-off Colt's | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036844 | . "I wouldn't do that," said Handy Solomon, almost kindly. "You couldn't kill us all. And w'at good would it do? I asks you that. I can cut down a chicken with my knife at twenty feet. You must surely see, sir, that I could have killed you too easy while you were covering Pancho there. This ain't got to | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036845 | be a war, Mr. Eagen, just because we don't want to work without any sense to it." There was more of the same sort. I had plenty of time to see my dilemma. Either I would have to abandon my attempt to keep the men busy, or I would have to invoke the authority of Captain Selover. To do the | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036846 | latter would be to destroy it. The master had become a stuffed figure, a bogie with which to frighten, an empty bladder that a prick would collapse. With what grace I could muster, I had to give in. "You'll have to have it your own way, I suppose," I snapped. Thrackles grinned, and Pulz started to say something, but Handy | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036847 | Solomon, with a peremptory gesture, and a black scowl, stopped him short. "Now that's what I calls right proper and handsome!" he cried admiringly. "We reely had no right to expect that, boys, as seamen, from our first officer! You can kiss the Book on it, that very few crews have such kind masters. Mr. Eagen has the right, and | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036848 | we signed to it all straight, to work us as he pleases; and w'at does he do? Why, he up and gives us a week shore leave, and then he gives us light watches, and all the time our pay goes on just the same. Now that's w'at I calls right proper and handsome conduct, or the devil's a preacher, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036849 | and I ventures with all respect to propose three cheers for Mr. Eagen." They gave them, grinning broadly. The villain stood looking at me, a sardonic gleam in the back of his eye. Then he gave a little hitch to his red head covering, and sauntered away humming between his teeth. I stood watching him, choked with rage and indecision. | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036850 | The humming broke into words. "'Oh, quarter, oh, quarter!' the jolly pirates cried. _Blow high, blow low! What care we_? But the quarter that we gave them was to sink them in the sea, _Down on the coast of the high Barbare-e-e_." "Here, you swab," he cried to Thrackles, "and you, Pancho! get some wood, lively! And Pulz, bring us | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036851 | a pail of water. Doctor, let's have duff to celebrate on." The men fell to work with alacrity. XI THE CORROSIVE That evening I smoked in a splendid isolation while the men whispered apart. I had nothing to do but smoke, and to chew my cud, which was bitter. There could be no doubt, however I may have saved my | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036852 | face, that command had been taken from me by that rascal, Handy Solomon. I was in two minds as to whether or not I should attempt to warn Darrow or the doctor. Yet what could I say? and against whom should I warn them? The men had grumbled, as men always do grumble in idleness, and had perhaps talked a | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036853 | little wildly; but that was nothing. The only indisputable fact I could adduce was that I had allowed my authority to slip through my fingers. And adequately to excuse that, I should have to confess that I was a writer and no handler of men. I abandoned the unpleasant train of thought with a snort of disgust, but it had | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036854 | led me to another. In the joy and uncertainty of living I had practically lost sight of the reason for my coming. With me it had always been more the adventure than the story; my writing was a by-product, a utilisation of what life offered me. I had set sail possessed by the sole idea of ferreting out Dr. Schermerhorn's | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036855 | investigations, but the gradual development of affairs had ended by absorbing my every faculty. Now, cast into an eddy by my change of fortunes, the original idea regained its force. I was out of the active government of affairs, with leisure on my hands, and my thoughts naturally turned with curiosity again to the laboratory in the valley. Darrow's "devil | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036856 | fires" were again painting the sky. I had noticed them from time to time, always with increasing wonder. The men accepted them easily as only one of the unexplained phenomena of a sailor's experience, but I had not as yet hit on a hypothesis that suited me. They were not allied to the aurora; they differed radically from the ordinary | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036857 | volcanic emanations; and scarcely resembled any electrical displays I had ever seen. The night was cool; the stars bright: I resolved to investigate. Without further delay I arose to my feet and set off into the darkness. Immediately one of the group detached himself from the fire and joined me. "Going for a little walk, sir?" asked Handy Solomon sweetly. | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036858 | "That's quite right and proper. Nothin' like a little walk to get you fit and right for your bunk." He held close to my elbow. We got just as far as the stockade in the bed of the arroyo. The lights we could make out now across the zenith; but owing to the precipitance of the cliffs, and the rise | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036859 | of the arroyo bed, it was impossible to see more. Handy Solomon felt the defences carefully. "A man would think, sir, it was a cannibal island," he observed. "All so tight and tidy-like here. It would take a ship's guns to batter her down. A man might dig under these here two gate logs, if no one was against him. | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036860 | Like to try it, sir?" "No," I answered gruffly. From that time on I was virtually a prisoner; yet so carefully was my surveillance accomplished that I could place my finger on nothing definite. Someone always accompanied me on my walks; and in the evening I was herded as closely as any cattle. Handy Solomon took the direction of affairs | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036861 | off my hands. You may be sure he set no very heavy tasks. The men cut a little wood, carried up a few pails of water--that was all. Lacking incentive to stir about, they came to spend most of their time lying on their backs watching the sky. This in turn bred a languor which is the sickest, most soul- | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036862 | and temper-destroying affair invented by the devil. They could not muster up energy enough to walk down the beach and back, and yet they were wearied to death of the inaction. After a little they became irritable toward one another. Each suspected the other of doing less than he should. You who know men will realise what this meant. The | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036863 | atmosphere of our camp became surly. I recognised the precursor of its becoming dangerous. One day on a walk in the hills I came on Thrackles and Pulz lying on their stomachs gazing down fixedly at Dr. Schermerhorn's camp. This was nothing extraordinary, but they started guiltily to their feet when they saw me, and made off, growling under their | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036864 | breaths. All this that I have told you so briefly, took time. It was the eating through of men's spirits by that worst of corrosives, idleness. I conceive it unnecessary to weary you with the details---- The situation was as yet uneasy but not alarming. One evening I overheard the beginning of an absurd plot to gain entrance to the | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036865 | Valley--that was as far as detail went. I became convinced at last that I should in some way warn Percy Darrow. That seems a simple enough proposition, does it not? But if you will stop to think one moment of the difficulties of my position, you will see that it was not as easy as at first it appears. Darrow | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036866 | still visited us in the evening. The men never allowed me even the chance of private communication while he was with us. One or two took pains to stretch out between us. Twice I arose when the assistant did, resolved to accompany him part way back. Both times men resolutely escorted us, and as resolutely separated us from the opportunity | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036867 | of a single word apart. The crew never threatened me by word or look. But we understood each other. I was not permitted to row out to the _Laughing Lass_ without escort. Therefore I never attempted to visit her again. The men were not anxious to do so, their awe of the captain made them only too glad to escape | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036868 | his notice. That empty shell of a past reputation was my only hope. It shielded the arms and ammunition. As I look back on it now, the period seems to me to be one of merely potential trouble. The men had not taken the pains to crystallise their ideas. I really think their compelling emotion was that of curiosity. They | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036869 | wanted to _see_. It needed a definite impulse to change that desire to one of greed. The impulse came from Percy Darrow and his idle talk of voodoos. As usual he was directing his remarks to the sullen Nigger. "Voodoos?" he said. "Of course there are. Don't fool yourself for a minute on that. There are good ones and bad | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036870 | ones. You can tame them if you know how, and they will do anything you want them to." Pulz chuckled in his throat. "You don't believe it?" drawled the assistant turning to him. "Well, it's so. You know that heavy box we are so careful of? Well, that's got a tame voodoo in it." The others laughed. "What he like?" | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036871 | asked the Nigger gravely. "He's a fine voodoo, with wavery arms and green eyes, and red glows." Watching narrowly its effect he swung off into one of the genuine old crooning voodoo songs, once so common down South, now so rarely heard. No one knows what the words mean--they are generally held to be charm-words only--a magic gibberish. But the | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036872 | Nigger sprang across the fire like lightning, his face altered by terror, to seize Darrow by the shoulders. "Doan you! Doan you!" he gasped, shaking the assistant violently back and forth. "Dat he King Voodoo song! Dat call him all de voodoo--all!" He stared wildly about in the darkness as though expecting to see the night thronged. There was a | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036873 | moment of confusion. Eager for any chance I hissed under my breath; "Danger! Look out!" I could not tell whether or not Darrow heard me. He left soon after. The mention of the chest had focussed the men's interest. "Well," Pulz began, "we've been here on this spot o' hell for a long time." "A year and five months," reckoned | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036874 | Thrackles. "A man can do a lot in that time." "If he's busy." "They've been busy." "Yes." "Wonder what they've done?" There was no answer to this, and the sea lawyer took a new tack. "I suppose we're all getting double wages." "That's so." "And that's say four hunder' for us and Mr. Eagen here. I suppose the Old Man | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036875 | don't let the schooner go for nothing." "Two hundred and fifty a month," said I, and then would have had the words back. They cried out in prolonged astonishment. "Seventeen months," pursued the logician after a few moments. He scratched with a stub of lead. "That makes over eleven thousand dollars since we've been out. How much do you suppose | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036876 | his outfit stands him?" he appealed to me. "I'm sure I can't tell you," I replied shortly. "Well, it's a pile of money, anyway." Nobody said anything for some time. "Wonder what they've done?" Pulz asked again. "Something that pays big." Thrackles supplied the desired answer. "Dat chis'----" suggested Perdosa. "Voodoo----" muttered the Nigger. "That's to scare us out," said | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036877 | Handy Solomon, with vast contempt. "That's what makes me sure it _is_ the chest." Pulz muttered some of the jargon of alchemy. "That's it," approved Handy Solomon. "If we could get----" "We wouldn't know how to use it," interrupted Pulz. "The book----" said Thrackles. "Well, the book----" asserted Pulz pugnaciously. "How do you know what it will be? It may | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036878 | be the Philosopher's Stone and it may be one of these other damn things. And then where'd we be?" It was astounding to hear this nonsense bandied about so seriously. And yet they more than half believed, for they were deep-sea men of the old school, and this was in print. Thrackles voiced approximately the general attitude. "Philosopher's stone or | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036879 | not, something's up. The old boy took too good care of that box, and he's spending too much money, and he's got hold of too much hell afloat to be doing it for his health." "You know w'at I t'ink?" smiled Perdosa. "He mak' di'mon's. He _say_ dat." The Nigger had entered one of his black, brooding moods from which | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036880 | these men expected oracles. "Get him ches'," he muttered. "I see him full--full of di'mon's!" They listened to him with vast respect, and were visibly impressed. So deep was the sense of awe that Handy Solomon unbent enough to whisper to me: "I don't take any stock in the Nigger's talk _ordinarily_. He's a hell of a fool nigger. But | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036881 | when his eye looks like that, then you want to listen close. He sees things then. Lots of times he's seen things. Even last year--the _Oyama_--he told about her three days ahead. That's why we were so ready for her," he chuckled. Nothing more developed for a long time except a savage fight between Pulz and Perdosa. I hunted sheep, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036882 | fished, wandered about--always with an escort tired to death before he started. The thought came to me to kill this man and so to escape and make cause with the scientists. My common sense forbade me. I begin to think that common sense is a very foolish faculty indeed. It taught me the obvious--that all this idle, vapouring talk was | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036883 | common enough among men of this class, so common that it would hardly justify a murder, would hardly explain an unwarranted intrusion on those who employed me. How would it look for me to go to them with these words in my mouth: "The captain has taken to drinking to dull the monotony. The crew think you are an alchemist | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036884 | and are making diamonds. Their interest in this fact seemed to me excessive, so I killed one of them, and here I am." "And who are you?" they could ask. "I am a reporter," would be my only truthful reply. You can see the false difficulties of my position. I do not defend my attitude. Undoubtedly a born leader of | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036885 | men, like Captain Selover at his best, would have known how to act with the proper decision both now and in the inception of the first mutiny. At heart I never doubted the reality of the crisis. Even Percy Darrow saw the surliness of the men's attitudes, and with his usual good sense divined the cause. "You chaps are getting | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036886 | lazy," said he, "why don't you do something? Where's the captain?" They growled something about there being nothing to do, and explained that the captain preferred to live aboard. "Don't blame him," said Darrow, "but he might give us a little of his squeaky company occasionally. Boys, I'll tell you something about seals. The old bull seals have long, stiff | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036887 | whiskers--a foot long. Do you know there's a market for those whiskers? Well, there is. The Chinese mount them in gold and use them for cleaners for their long pipes. Each whisker is worth from six bits to a dollar and a quarter. Why don't you kill a few bull seal for the 'trimmings'?" "Nothin' to do with a voodoo?" | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036888 | grunted Handy Solomon. Darrow laughed amusedly. "No, this is the truth," he assured. "I'll tell you what: I'll give you boys six bits apiece for the whisker hairs, and four bits for the galls. I expect to sell them at a profit." Next morning they shook off their lethargy and went seal-hunting. I was practically commanded to attend. This attitude | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036889 | had been growing of late: now it began to take a definite form. "Mr. Eagan, don't you want to go hunting?" or "Mr. Eagen, I guess I'll just go along with you to stretch my legs," had given way to, "We're going fishing: you'd better come along." I had known for a long time that I had lost any real | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036890 | control of them; and that perhaps humiliated me a little. However, my inexperience at handling such men, and the anomalous character of my position to some extent consoled me. In the filaments brushed across the face of my understanding I could discover none so strong as to support an overt act on my part. I cannot doubt, that had the | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036891 | affair come to a focus, I should have warned the scientists even at the risk of my life. In fact, as I shall have occasion to show you, I did my best. But at the moment, in all policy I could see my way to little besides acquiescence. We killed seals by sequestrating the bulls, surrounding them, and clubbing them | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036892 | at a certain point of the forehead. It was surprising to see how hard they fought, and how quickly they succumbed to a blow properly directed. Then we stripped the mask with its bristle of long whiskers, took the gall, and dragged the carcass into the surf where it was devoured by fish. At first the men, pleased by the | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036893 | novelty, stripped the skins. The blubber, often two or three inches in thickness, had then to be cut away from the pelt, cube by cube. It was a long, an oily, and odoriferous job. We stunk mightily of seal oil; our garments were shiny with it, the very pores of our skins seemed to ooze it. And even after the | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036894 | pelt was fairly well cleared, it had still to be tanned. Percy Darrow suggested the method, but the process was long, and generally unsatisfactory. With the acquisition of the fifth greasy, heavy, and ill-smelling piece of fur the men's interest in peltries waned. They confined themselves in all strictness to the "trimmings." Percy Darrow showed us how to clean the | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036895 | whiskers. The process was evil. The masks were, quite simply, to be advanced so far in the way of putrefaction that the bristles would part readily from their sockets. The first batch the men hung out on a line. A few moments later we heard a mighty squawking, and rushed out to find the island ravens making off with the | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036896 | entire catch. Protection of netting had to be rigged. We caught seals for a month or so. There was novelty in it, and it satisfied the lust for killing. As time went on, the bulls grew warier. Then we made expeditions to outlying rocks. Later Handy Solomon approached me on another diplomatic errand. "The seals is getting shy, sir," said | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036897 | he. "They are," said I. "The only way to do is to shoot them," said he. "Quite like," I agreed. A pause ensued. "We've got no cartridges," he insinuated. "And you've taken charge of my rifle," I pointed out. "Oh, not a bit, sir," he cried. "Thrackles, he just took it to clean it--you can have it whenever you want | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036898 | it, sir." "I have no cartridges--as you have observed," said I. "There's plenty aboard," he suggested. "And they're in very good hands there," said I. He ruminated a moment, polishing the steel of his hook against the other arm of his shirt. Suddenly he looked up at me with a humorous twinkle. "You're afraid of us!" he accused. I was | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036899 | silent, not knowing just how to meet so direct an attack. "No need to be," he continued. I said nothing. He looked at me shrewdly; then stood off on another tack. "Well, sir, I didn't mean just that. I didn't mean you was really scared of us. But we're gettin' to know each other, livin' here on this old island, | 60 | gutenberg |
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