Moran of the Lady Letty. Frank Norris
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he said, under his breath. He spat over the bows and sucked the nicotine from his mustache, thoughtfully.
“I ree-marked,” he observed, “as how you had brains, my son.”
A few minutes later the Captain, who was standing in the dory’s bow and alternately conning the ocean’s surface and looking back to the Chinaman standing on the schooner’s masthead, uttered an exclamation:
“Steady, ship your oars, quiet now, quiet, you damn fools! We’re right on ‘em—four, by Gawd, an’ big as dinin’ tables!”
The oars were shipped. The dory’s speed dwindled. “Out your paddles, sit on the gun’l, and paddle ee-asy.” The hands obeyed. The Captain’s voice dropped to a whisper. His back was toward them and he gestured with one free hand. Looking out over the water from his seat on the gun’l, Wilbur could make out a round, greenish mass like a patch of floating seaweed, just under the surface, some sixty yards ahead.
“Easy sta’board,” whispered the Captain under his elbow. “Go ahead, port; e-e-easy all, steady, steady.”
The affair began to assume the intensity of a little drama—a little drama of midocean. In spite of himself, Wilbur was excited. He even found occasion to observe that the life was not so bad, after all. This was as good fun as stalking deer. The dory moved forward by inches. Kitchell’s whisper was as faint as a dying infant’s: “Steady all, s-stead-ee, sh-stead—”
He lunged forward sharply with the gaff, and shouted aloud: “I got him—grab holt his tail flippers, you fool swabs; grab holt quick—don’t you leggo—got him there, Charlie? If he gets away, you swine, I’ll rip y’ open with the gaff—heave now—heave—there—there—soh, stand clear his nippers. Strike me! he’s a whacker. I thought he was going to get away. Saw me just as I swung the gaff, an’ ducked his nut.”
Over the side, bundled without ceremony into the boat, clawing, thrashing, clattering, and blowing like the exhaust of a donkey-engine, tumbled the great green turtle, his wet, green shield of shell three feet from edge to edge, the gaff firmly transfixed in his body, just under the fore-flipper. From under his shell protruded his snake-like head and neck, withered like that of an old man. He was waving his head from side to side, the jaws snapping like a snapped silk handkerchief. Kitchell thrust him away with a paddle. The turtle craned his neck, and catching the bit of wood in his jaw, bit it in two in a single grip.
“I tol’ you so, I tol’ you to stand clear his snapper. If that had been your shin now, eh? Hello, what’s that?”
Faintly across the water came a prolonged hallooing from the schooner. Kitchell stood up in the dory, shading his eyes with his hat.
“What’s biting ‘em now?” he muttered, with the uneasiness of a captain away from his ship. “Oughta left Charlie on board—or you, son. Who’s doin’ that yellin’, I can’t make out.”
“Up in the crow’s nest,” exclaimed Wilbur. “It’s Jim, see, he’s waving his arms.”
“Well, whaduz he wave his dam’ fool arms for?” growled Kitchell, angry because something was going forward he did not understand.
“There, he’s shouting again. Listen—I can’t make out what he’s yelling.”
“He’ll yell to a different pipe when I get my grip of him. I’ll twist the head of that swab till he’ll have to walk back’ard to see where he’s goin’. Whaduz he wave his arms for—whaduz he yell like a dam’ philly-loo bird for? What’s him say, Charlie?”
“Jim heap sing, no can tell. Mebbee—tinkum sing, come back chop-chop.”
“We’ll see. Oars out, men, give way. Now, son, put a little o’ that Yale stingo in the stroke.”
In the crow’s nest Jim still yelled and waved like one distraught, while the dory returned at a smart clip toward the schooner. Kitchell lathered with fury.
“Oh-h,” he murmured softly through his gritted teeth. “Jess lemmee lay mee two hands afoul of you wunst, you gibbering, yellow philly-loo bird, believe me, you’ll dance. Shut up!” he roared; “shut up, you crazy do-do, ain’t we coming fast as we can?”
The dory bumped alongside, and the Captain was over the rail like quicksilver. The hands were all in the bow, looking and pointing to the west. Jim slid down the ratlines, bubbling over with suppressed news. Before his feet had touched the deck Kitchell had kicked him into the stays again, fulminating blasphemies.
“Sing!” he shouted, as the Chinaman clambered away like a bewildered ape; “sing a little more. I would if I were you. Why don’t you sing and wave, you dam’ fool philly-loo bird?”
“Yas, sah,” answered the coolie.
“What you yell for? Charlie, ask him whaffo him sing.”
“I tink-um ship,” answered Charlie calmly, looking out over the starboard quarter.
“Ship!”
“Him velly sick,” hazarded the Chinaman from the ratlines, adding a sentence in Chinese to Charlie.
“He says he tink-um ship sick, all same; ask um something—ship velly sick.”
By this time the Captain, Wilbur, and all on board could plainly make out a sail some eight miles off the starboard bow. Even at that distance, and to eyes so inexperienced as those of Wilbur, it needed but a glance to know that something was wrong with her. It was not that she failed to ride the waves with even keel, it was not that her rigging was in disarray, nor that her sails were disordered. Her distance was too great to make out such details. But in precisely the same manner as a trained physician glances at a doomed patient, and from that indefinable look in the face of him and the eyes of him pronounces the verdict “death,” so Kitchell took in the stranger with a single comprehensive glance, and exclaimed:
“Wreck!”
“Yas, sah. I tink-um velly sick.”
“Oh, go to ‘ll, or go below and fetch up my glass—hustle!”
The glass was brought. “Son,” exclaimed Kitchell—“where is that man with the brains? Son, come aloft here with me.” The two clambered up the ratlines to the crow’s nest. Kitchell adjusted the glass.
“She’s a bark,” he muttered, “iron built—about seven hundred tons, I guess—in distress. There’s her ensign upside down at the mizz’nhead—looks like Norway—an’ her distress signals on the spanker gaff. Take a blink at her, son—what do you make her out? Lord, she’s ridin’ high.”
Wilbur took the glass, catching the stranger after several clumsy attempts. She was, as Captain Kitchell had announced, a bark, and, to judge by her flag, evidently Norwegian.
“How she rolls!” muttered Wilbur.
“That’s what I can’t make out,” answered Kitchell. “A bark such as she ain’t ought to roll thata way; her ballast’d steady her.”
“What’s the flags on that boom aft—one’s red and white and square-shaped, and the other’s the same color, only swallow-tail in shape?”
“That’s H. B., meanin: ‘I am in need of assistance.’”
“Well, where’s the crew? I don’t see anybody on board.”
“Oh, they’re there right enough.”
“Then they’re pretty well concealed about the premises,” turned Wilbur, as he passed the glass to the Captain.
“She does seem kinda empty,” said the Captain in a moment, with a sudden show of interest that Wilbur failed to understand.
“An’ where’s her boats?” continued Kitchell. “I don’t just quite make out any boats at all.” There was a long silence.
“Seems to be a sort of haze over her,” observed Wilbur.
“I noticed that, air kinda quivers oily-like. No boats, no boats—an’ I can’t see anybody aboard.” Suddenly