Only once had he ever met his match. This was when a big Irish A.B. had jumped out of his bunk, at the first taunt the Skipper had let loose, and had knocked Captain Bully Keller across the fo’cas’le with a mighty and scientific right-and-left punch. And Captain Bully Keller had immediately shown the brute’s blood that was in him; for he had drawn his gun and shot the big Irishman through his shoulder; after which, although the man was disabled, he had hammered him into quietness.
There you have the man. He loved fighting. He liked a good fight; but he would fight as foul and ugly as an apache, if he thought there was any danger of someone beating him.
Very few men could say truthfully that they had ever drawn a pay-day out of any ship commanded by Captain Bully Keller. Nor could the men of his latest crew boast otherwise; for they lowered one of the boats, with enormous secrecy and fear, the same night the ship dropped anchor in the bay; and pulled for the shore, sans pay-day and sea-chests.
But had they understood Captain Bully Keller’s point of view, they might have experienced less fear, and troubled less about secrecy. He had been awake while they maneuvered with much grease (out of the Cook’s slush-tub) to grease the boat’s falls and the sheaves of the blocks, so as to insure their running silently when they lowered the boat. And he had merely grinned to himself and let them go; for the boat could be recovered in the morning; and it was a cheap way of getting labour—to have the men all run off without a cent of pay!
The only defect of this system was the difficulty it entailed in getting men. But this was solved by the longshore crimps and shanghai-houses on the waterfront.
II
The Alceste discharged her cargo and went across to the mudflats, to lie up and wait for freights to rise.
By this time, Nibby Tompkins was sufficently recovered to be about the decks again, and as there was no one aboard but Captain Bully Keller, his Mate, Mr. Jackson, and the Steward, Nibby had a vigorous time of it, between dawn and dusk.
Each night, Nibby was further employed in the boat. It was his work to go ashore with the Captain and the Mate, and stand by the boat till they returned, which was often not until well after midnight. Nibby, however, occupied the time usefully enough in sleeping on the bottom boards, rolled up in a piece of old sailcloth, which he kept stored away in the boat for that purpose.
One night, however, just as Nibby was standing up, rolling himself into a sort of human sausage, preliminary to lying down for his accustomed “snooze,” a voice hailed him through the dusk from the little wooden jetty to which the boat was made fast. And at the sound of the voice, Nibby both thrilled and shivered; for his father was a stern disciplinarian, almost as stern (though not in any way as brutal) as Captain Bully Keller; and it was his father’s voice that had hailed the boat.
“You in the boat, there! Ha! You in the boat, there! Can you tell me where yon ship named Alceste is?” came the hail again.
“Father!” said Nibby, in a half-suffocated voice, and shed the wrapping of old sailcloth like a skin.
“It’s Nibby boy!” he heard his mother’s voice cry out, suddenly. “Nibby! Nibby! Nibby!”
“Hush, Mother!” said his father, quietly.
“Mother,” shouted Nibby, and hauled the boat in alongside, by the painter, all his hesitation gone. “Mother!” he shouted, as he leaped up onto the jetty.
A little woman was standing there, in the dusk, beside a short, enormously thick-set, bow-legged man, with a goatee. The little woman gave out a small screech, and ran at the lad. Then her arms were round him, and she was crooning and crying, together, in sudden satisfied contentment.
The short, thick-set man came forward slowly and patted the woman gently on the shoulder. “There, there, Mother! Don’t ’ee take on!” he said, in a curiously deep, gentle voice.
“You’ll not be hard with him, Joseph?” said the woman, in a stifled, anxious tone.
“Nay, Mother, the lad’s made his bed, and he must lie on it; but there’s things I’ve to say to him. Nibby, son, do ye think it was right to your mother, to go running off like this to sea with never a word? Son, I tell you, I would have thrashed you within an inch of your life, had I caught ye three months back. I can’t think ye’d any true idee how you would put your mother so in trouble, or you’d never have done the like of such a thing. And the first word we had from you was after ye reached here, tellin’ how the Cap’n had laced you good and proper; and well you needed it, son, I’m thinkin’. You’ve made your bed, and you’ll have to lie on it. I come here to bring your mother; for she was breaking her heart with trouble over you. But don’t think, son, as I’ll stand for you backin’ down from your contrac’! You’ve made your bed, and you’ll lie in it! You’ll finish this voyage, out and back to Boston, and sign off proper and get your discharge and money, and come home, and maybe you’ll have learned a bit sense by then, and found the sea’s not like the dime books tell about. What are you doing down in that boat?”
“I’m standin’ by her, feyther, till Cap’n an’ Mate come back from the drink saloon,” said Nibby, loosing himself gently out of his mother’s arms and facing his father.
“What time’ll they be back, son?” asked Mr. Tompkins, in his quiet, deep voice.
“Gen’rally about midnight,” said Nibby. “I sleeps in the bottom of the boat till they comes.”
“Where’s the ship, son?” asked his father. “Your mother’s set that she must see where you sleep and eat, and what-like your clothes is, an’ the like. Can we go aboard?”
“Sure, feyther,” said Nibby. “Come, Mother an’ Dad. I’ll pull ye both out in a crack. There’s hours ’fore the boat’ll be needed.”
Ten minutes later Nibby and his father and mother were in the somewhat gloomy, bare, iron-sided fo’cas’le of the Alceste.
“An’ where do ye sleep, Nibby?” asked his mother.
“Here, Mother, mum,” he said, and drew back the rough curtains that he had made out of an old potato-sack.
“Why, Nibby, where’s your bed?” asked his mother, in a shocked voice.
“Haven’t got one, Mummie,” he said. “Hadn’t a cent when I come aboard.”
“You been sleepin’ on them bare boards, all this past three months?” said his mother, and began to cry.
Joseph Tompkins flashed a quick look, that betrayed a sudden grim pride, at this son. But, “I guess you sure got a hard bed to shake up, son,” was all he said, in his quiet way. Then, suddenly, as if remembering something, he ordered abruptly: “Strip, son. I’ll take a look to see if the Cap’n lambasted you as hard as you said in your letter.”
Nibby pulled off his dungaree jumper, and then his shirt, and turned his small but muscular back for his parents to inspect. Even his father, the winner of over sixty fierce ring-fights, let out his breath a little quickly; for though it was a month since the thrashing, the boy’s back was still all covered with great dull livid patches, where the flesh had not yet recovered from the crushing and bruising of the heavy top-sail halyards; while in many places the skin was furrowed in huge discoloured wheals.
Nibby’s mother neither cried nor said anything for a full minute. Then she spoke, in a queer, fierce breathless voice: “Joseph!” she said, “are you going to stand for that, Joseph?”
Nibby’s father said nothing for a little. He was too shaken with an extraordinary new sort of anger—the kind of anger that shakes the she bear when her cubs are molested; but what he said, at last, in his deep voice, was just this, and he meant every word of it:
“Nibby’s shore been through it, Mother; but I mean as he shall finish what he begun. I mean as he shall learn his lesson once an’ always. But I’m kind-a angry too; for I don’t reckon as that’s a proper way to lick no lad. We’ll go back ashore, wife, to the hotel; an’ we’ll have a word of prayer about this.”
For Nibby’s father was that most pungent of combinations—a reformed and deeply religious prize-fighter.
“Nibby,” he said, as they left their so
n at the little wooden jetty, a few minutes later, “here’s five doll’rs. Get yourself a bed, son, an’ a shirt or two. Me an’ your mother’ll come down and see you here tomorrow night.”
III
Next evening, shortly after Nibby had been left in charge of the boat, his father and mother came along the little wooden jetty, and his father hailed him.
“I’ve brought you some buckwheats an’ bacon-pastries, Nibby,” his mother told him, as he hauled the boat alongside the jetty. “They’m not what I’d call proper pastry-cake, but you wait while I gets you to home. I’ll shore cook you some an’ you’ll do fine.”
“Do they ever carry passengers in your ship, Nibby?” his father asked him.
“Dunno, Feyther,” said Nibby, with his mouth full of bacon pie. “Are ye thinkin’ of comin’ passenger for the trip home, Dad? Is Mother comin’?”
“Me and your mother has an idee of it, son,” replied his father.
“I heard th’ Cap’n say today as we was goin’ to ship a few runners and go up the river to Crockett on Wednesday, to load grain,” said Nibby. “Maybe if you an’ Mum was to come alongside in Crockett, casual, an’ say as you wanted to go round to Boston, you might fix it up with the old beast. I hope you lams the soul out of him afore we gets back, Dad.”
Mr. Tompkins frowned a little. “Ye’ll use better language, son, before your mother!” he said, quietly. “An’, further, you’ll understand, son, not one word as I’m yer feyther. Not one word, mind ye! You’ve made your bed, an’ you must lie on it, an’ maybe by the time ye hit Boston again, ye’ll have a bit of horse-sense hammered into you. Though I’m not sayin’ I’ll stan’ for the Cap’n using you bad again, the way he done on the v’yage out here. At first, I’ll own, I weakened, son, an’ I wanted bad to give way to me nat’ral feelin’, an’ lay the Cap’n out. But me an’ your mother’s had a deal of prayer about this. An’ she reck’ns, same as me, that we can trust the Lord in all things, if we does our best to help ourselves, same time. Me an’ your mother will come passengers, if I can fix it up with the Cap’n; an’ maybe, son, as I’ve said to your mother, he may prove a brand as we can pluck from the burnin’.”
“I doubt he’d ship you, Dad, if he knew you was my feyther,” said Nibby.
IV
“You’m wanted, Cap’n,” said Nibby, the following Thursday, as the Alceste lay alongside the grain wharf, up in the little wheat-packing township of Crockett.
“Eh?” said Captain Bully Keller. “Who the ’ell wants me?”
“It’s an old geezer an’ his missus, up on the quay side, Cap’n,” said Nibby; “Says he wants to take a passage to Boston.”
The Captain’s eyes brightened a moment with interest and greed. If he could “nobble” a passenger or two for the run home, he would so work it that no mention of the fact ever reached his owner; and the passage-money would prove very useful to a man of his somewhat exceptional thirst.
He went up on deck, his face less unpleasant than usual. “Mornin’, Sir! Mornin’, Ma’am!” he said, as he came to the side of the vessel, close to where the old “geezer” and his wife were standing. “I hear you’d like to take the trip home with me. Come aboard. I should think we might fix you up, if you got the dollars.”
“Safe right here, an’ plenty of ’em, Cap’n,” said Nibby’s father, slapping the breast of his coat.
The big Captain’s hard eyes glinted again, with a quick flash of money-lust. Here was plainly an old “stick” who had the dollars and didn’t mind the world hearing of the fact. He promptly named a sum far in excess of what he had meant to ask.
“I’ll take you both round, Sir, an’ land you in Boston, safe an’ sound, an’ well fed, for the sum of four hundred dollars for the two of you, paid down on the nail,” he said. “Will you come aboord an’ look round the ship?”
They climbed down aboard and went the round of the ship, with Mrs. Tompkins striving all the time to get a sight of Nibby, without the Captain noticing.
They concluded the tour of the vessel and came to a pause on the poop, where Mrs. Tompkins stood behind the huge figure of the Captain, and ventured a slight signal of affection to her son, whom she could see swabbing down paintwork, near at hand.
Meanwhile, Mr. Tompkins was talking to the Skipper. “You’ll not be a religious man, Cap’n Keller?” he remarked.
“No, Sir,” said Captain Keller, firmly, “I’m not what you’d call religious.”
Then he realized in a sudden flash of quick cunning that the countrified-looking couple, who proposed to take passage with him, must be given “that way.” “But I’ve a sound respect for religion, Sir—a sound respect,” he added, hastily.
Here was a clear four hundred dollars going a-begging, and Captain Keller had considerably more use for gold than for his own soul. He regretted, savagely, that he hadn’t seen at once the kind of people these prospective passengers were. They were just the sort of folk to be shy of taking passage with a man that hadn’t a “denomination” of his own. He wished he had been less emphatic about his non-religious temperament. Perhaps he could remove the impression—
He was aware suddenly, that Mr. Tompkins was speaking again: “Me an’ my missus is sure sorry, Cap’n, you ain’t religious,” he was saying. “I don’t reckon as an unsaved man had oughter go to sea—no, Sir, I sure don’t.”
“I’ve a sound respect for it, Sir—a sound respect,” repeated the Captain, his great frame shaken with the anxiety of his possible loss. He could see that they felt disinclined now to sail with him. Could he think of nothing to help the scales of decision down on the side he wanted? A desperate thought flashed across him. Could he not turn “religious”? He opened his mouth to get out something or other that would revivify the fast-fading intention of these people to sail with him; but in that moment, Mr. Tompkins continued again:
“But there’s hope, Cap’n; there’s hope,” said the ex-prize-fighter, with a glow of religious fervour in his somewhat sombre eyes. “There’s hope, Cap’n. I’m right glad to hear ye say you’ve a sound respec’ for religion. Yes, Sir! Maybe the day of salvation approacheth. Would you come to a bit of dinner with me an’ my missus, up at the Pike Restrong? Maybe we can fix this up over a snack, Cap’n. I’d sure like a talk. I’ve been a great sinner, Cap’n, meself. A great sinner—and the fare, you say, is four hundred dollars. Very good. Maybe we can show you the path, Cap’n. It would be a pleasure to sail with you, if you was regenerate, Cap’n—a great pleasure an’ a great privilege. You’ll come up to the Pike at seven thirty-sharp, Cap’n?”
“Sure, Sir an’ Ma’am,” said Captain Bully Keller, feeling immensely hopeful.
“Joseph,” said his wife, as they walked away up to the township, “I shore can’t feel Christianlike to that man, nohow. I shore don’t feel I want to speak to him. The great brute!”
“Aye, Mother,” said her husband, quietly. “I guess I understan’; but it would be a great deed to pluck such a brand from the burning. A great deed. We must put our heart bitterness behind us.” His eyes still shone with the dull, steady glow of intense fervour that bespeaks the enthusiast.
V
Exactly what happened at that “snack,” up at the Pike Restaurant, that night, I do not know; but a remarkably drunk sailor, one of the runners belonging to the Alceste, had an extraordinary tale to tell the next morning, which no one in the fo’cas’le believed.
He asserted that, the previous night, having spent no more than a dime on beer, and feeling, as he put it, just nicely hearty, he had drifted in at the doorway of the little Salvation Army hall up in Pine Street.
“Strike me!” he continued; “but them’s smart chaps at their job; they are that! I’d not sung mor’n two verses of ‘Whiskey is the Life of a Man’ when I found myself up on the pen-tent form, with one of ’em on each side of me, prayin’ like the divil. Well, mates, I got thinkin’, as I was there, I might as well let ’em save me, an’ be done wiv it, when the next thing I knows, there wa
s the Capting, right on me starboard beam, with that old codger as come aboard today, and his missus, one on each side of him; an’ they was prayin’ like billy-oh! I never stopped to see the end of it. I was that scared, I thought sure it was the rats as was comin’ on me; an’ I just come clear out of the place, before them as was convertin’ me had done the job proper. I told ’em I wasn’t well, and I’d call again. I tell you, mates, it’s gospel I’m givin’ you—”
And so forth, and much more in the same style; which only excited further violent disbelief, and earnest inquiries regarding the drink saloon where he had been able to achieve so much for the strictly modest sum of one dime.
Whatever we are to think about the matter, the fact remains that Mr. and Mrs. Tompkins did take passage with Captain Bully Keller. But, knowing the character of the man, I can scarcely think that even the lure of the four hundred dollars passage-money makes the runner’s yarn seem plausible. Yet there is the fact—Nibby’s father and mother took passage with Captain Bully Keller, cash paid down!
VI
The way of the transgressor is hard, we are informed; though the hardness is sometimes less evident than poetic justice might desire.
But in the case of Captain Bully Keller, the statement fitted. His conversation became so pruned on the passage home to Boston that his own Mate hardly recognised it. Further, he had to take part in lengthy religious discussions with Mr. Tompkins, until, in self-defense, he took to staying in his cabin and swearing to himself, until some sensation of self-respect returned.
This lasted a little over a week, during which, more and more, old Mrs. Tompkins found herself less and less able to bear herself in Christianlike spirit toward this latest “brand plucked from the burning.” She kept remembering the view she had been given of Nibby’s terribly bruised and lacerated back; and the power of forgiveness was not in her.
The Ghost Pirates and Other Revenants of the Sea Page 37