by Jonas Lie
Salvé had by this time had about enough of this free-and-easy and undesired playing on his account. The man’s face, moreover, with all its joviality, by no means attracted him, and he shouted to him in a sharply-protesting tone—
“Play for yourself, Yankee.”
The American seemed not to be able to hear on that side, for he repeated, coolly nodding to him—
“One more on account!”
Salvé’s patience was exhausted. He had been sitting all this time squeezed up in the narrow space between the bench and the wall with people on both sides of him, preventing his getting out; but now grasping his neighbour violently by the shoulder, he sprang all at once across the table and over to the unabashed Yankee, with an irresistible feeling that, come what might, he would get out into the freedom of the open air once more.
Just then there came from the furthest room a cry of “police.” The lights in that room were at once extinguished; and a moment after, those in the room where Salvé was on the point of falling foul of the American (who, to his great surprise, found him all of a sudden confronting him) went out also.
Their hostile relations, however, were almost immediately turned into friendly ones. For Salvé, who had seen the landlord making a rush towards him, felt himself suddenly, in the midst of the confusion caused by the darkness, seized by two men and forced towards a door leading in another direction than that in which he saw the stream was setting, and which no doubt was the way out.
“Help, Yankee! there’s some villany on here; the small door to the right!” he shouted, with great presence of mind, and at the same moment the door was slammed behind him. A handkerchief was tied over his mouth; he was tripped up and brought heavily to the ground, where his feet and hands were tied, and he was then shot into a dark side-room, which seemed to be at the back of a press, that was unlatched to pass him through.
“H’m!” said the Yankee coolly, to himself. “I am not going to lose his pay, if I know it,” and he set out accordingly in search of the police, with whom he had no outstanding account.
Salvé was certain he had heard the señorita’s voice whispering in the outer room; and not long after he heard the latch in the press raised, and she stood before him with a light. She looked at him mischievously, and spilt some oil out of the lamp on to his face with a little scornful laugh. But her expression changed then to that of a tigress burning for revenge that is compelled to put off the gratification of her fury, and she darted out again, clapping down the latch behind her.
Salvé lay tightly bound with his hands behind his back. But his cat-like suppleness enabled him eventually to wriggle his sheath-knife out of his breast pocket, and he found no great difficulty then in freeing himself from his bonds.
He stood now with his knife in his hand and listened.
Before long he heard the American’s voice, with the police, and they appeared to be searching. He shouted to them; and the next moment he was released.
“He is one of our crew—belongs to the Stars and Stripes,” said the American, arresting Salvé, who, as long as he got out of this accursed town now, did not care in what capacity it might be, and offered no opposition.
“You have not improved your beauty, my lad,” said his rescuer, derisively, as he held up the light to his face.
“I should like to have one word with the tavern-keeper before I go,” said Salvé.
“And that is what we have not the slightest inclination for,” said the American—who, it now appeared, was boatswain on board—in a dry tone of authority. “We are not going larking with the police. Besides, having once recovered that trifle of wages, I don’t mean to risk losing it again.”
The Yankees made a close ring round their prisoner, and there was nothing for it but to follow as he was directed. A look, however, at the boatswain gave him to understand that that question of the wages would be settled between them when they got on board.
CHAPTER XVI
The Stars and Stripes lay in the roads with the Union flag at her gaff. She was a long, black, and, at the water-line, well-shaped vessel, with a crew of thirty-two men; and Salvé was so taken with her appearance that as they came alongside he silently congratulated himself on his luck in getting a berth in her. They were so obliging, moreover, as to give him a berth to himself in a separate cabin below. But, to his intense indignation, no sooner had he entered it than the door was latched on the outside, and when he tried to kick it open, it was signified to him that during the short time they had still to be at Rio, he was to remain in confinement, that they might be sure of him. The heat was intolerable down there; and to add to that, there was incessant crying and groaning going on in the hold beside him, as if it were full of sick people. It was the vilest treatment he had ever been subjected to.
The work of taking in the cargo went on uninterruptedly the whole night, as if they were in a particular hurry to get out of the harbour, and about noon the anchor was weighed while the contents of the last lighter were being taken on board.
When Salvé, some hours after, was set at liberty, they were already out in the open sea off the mouth of the channel. The captain, the three mates, and several of the inferiors in command, when on deck, wore gold-laced caps and a kind of uniform, as on a man-of-war, and the officer of the watch was armed. The crew, on the other hand, were almost to a man shabby, and they seemed to consist of men of every nationality—English, Irish, Germans, and Americans, not to mention half a dozen negroes and mulattoes. As no one took any notice of him, he went about as he pleased for a while; and presently saw, with a disagreeable sensation, no less than three corpses carelessly sewed up in sail-cloth dropped over the side of the ship that was turned from the land, without the slightest ceremony. The uncomfortable feeling which this incident had aroused was anything but allayed when he heard presently from a little pale cabin-boy with whom he had entered into conversation that it had been successfully concealed from the harbour authorities that there was yellow fever on board; that there were many more lying sick below; and that one of those who had just been heaved overboard, had died the day before in the very berth in which Salvé had slept that night.
In the evening he was called aft to the captain, who was standing with the boatswain at his elbow. He was a spare, energetic-looking man, of about forty years of age, with thick black whiskers, marked features, and rather hollow cheeks, and with carefully dressed, glossy hair. He was smoking a handsome pipe with a long stem inlaid with mother-of-pearl, and took a sip from time to time from a cup of black coffee that was standing on the skylight.
“What is your name?” he asked, nodding in reply to Salvé’s salute.
“Salvé.”
“Salvé,” repeated the captain, with an English pronunciation of the name; “and Norwegian?”
“He looks too respectable for the pack he’ll have to herd with,” he muttered to the boatswain.
“Able seaman?”
“Yes.”
“You have had three guineas on account?” he went on, after a couple of puffs to keep his pipe alight, as he looked into his ledger; “a month’s wages.”
“No, sir,” said Salvé, firmly, “I have had nothing on account,”—and he proceeded then to relate the circumstances under which the supposed payment had been made. “I have not been regularly engaged till this moment, if I am so now; but up to this I have been treated like a dog, and worse.”
The captain took no notice of his last observation, and merely said shortly and sternly—
“The three guineas are owing to him, boatswain Jenkins. His place will be in the foretop. A steady hand will be wanted among all that rabble there.”
“Another time you’ll perhaps play on your own account, and not on the sailors’,” he observed, turning to the boatswain; but Salvé caught the remark.
With this the conference came to a
n end, the boatswain’s expression prophesying that when the opportunity offered Salvé should pay for his triumph. He went about nursing his prominent chin, and twisting his yellow whiskers, and found a victim for the present in a wretched Mulatto, who was scouring for the cook. After first correcting him sharply for nothing, he coolly felled him to the deck with a handspike, and left him lying there unable to move.
Salvé’s blood boiled at the sight; but his indignation gave way presently to astonishment when he saw the poor fellow get up and go on indefatigably with his work, after first quietly wiping his own blood off the saucepan. There was a limit to brutality, he thought, and in his disgust he almost envied him the blow he had received.
He provided himself now from the purser with a suit of seaman’s clothes in lieu of the rather damaged cloth ones which he wore; and the sailmaker gave him out hammock clothes, to be paid for out of his wages. He proceeded then to hang his hammock from one of the beams between decks; and while he was doing so observed another man in a canvas suit like his own, similarly occupied, not far from him. He couldn’t be mistaken—it was Federigo.
The latter had, as Salvé afterwards heard, been taken by the police during the affair in the tavern. He had seen how Salvé had been rescued by the boatswain of the Stars and Stripes; and having managed to escape from his captors on the way to the guard-house, he had sought a similar refuge.
Salvé’s indignation at his sister’s baseness was still too fresh for Federigo’s reappearance to be in any way agreeable to him, although he believed him to be innocent of any complicity in that business. At the same time, the latter’s conscience was apparently not entirely clear in the matter, for there was a certain conscious sense of humiliation in his expression, combined with something which made Salvé feel that he must be upon his guard. Neither spoke to the other, and it might have been supposed from their bearing towards one another that they had never met before.
It very soon became clear to Salvé that he could not have hit upon a more unfortunate ship. The crew was composed of the dregs of the New Orleans and Charleston docks—men with every species of vice and degradation stamped upon their countenances, and amongst whom every second word was some infamous oath or blasphemy. Blows with handspikes were of common occurrence, and brutality and violence generally were the order of the day. There was no court of appeal, and the immunity which any one individual might enjoy depended entirely upon how far he was protected by the officers—who, however, in a general way, did not interfere in the quarrels forward—or had formed a league with others.
The Americans and the Irish banded together, and being the most numerous, practised a shameless system of tyranny against any who could not defend themselves—a miserable sickly Spaniard, who had been forced to work until he had actually dropped, having recently been more especially the object of their attentions. Their supremacy, however, was contested by a party of seven or eight tattered countrymen of the latter, with one or two Portuguese, who were always ready with their knives, and who formed a sort of opposition. To this party Federigo had attached himself.
Salvé stood alone. The Americans and Irish had at first reckoned upon having him with them, but had gradually turned against him. They had taken offence at his apparent disinclination to associate with them more than he could help. He seemed to think himself too good for them; and in addition to that, the seaman-like qualities which he displayed made them dislike him out of envy. But their hostility was perhaps mainly due to the boatswain, who encouraged the idea among the rest of the crew that he was favoured by the officers. Federigo came out now in an unexpectedly friendly light; and Salvé perceived that it was only owing to him that all the Portuguese were not against him also. The result was that the two gradually approached such other again.
There were of course in such a collection of riff-raff, individual bullies whose hands were against every man, but who to some extent kept each other in check. The one most feared of these was a huge, copper-coloured, scarred Irishman, who seemed periodically to be possessed by a very demon of violence, and to be actually running over with bad blood. He had been in irons for some time before the vessel arrived at Rio, for having one day sworn on deck that he would murder the captain. It was with this ruffian that Salvé had first to measure himself, the boatswain being the immediate cause.
One day when the large bell forward had rung for dinner, the boatswain gave an order which detained Salvé for some time after the others had taken their places at the long table in the round-house, and when he came in everything was eaten up, and he lost his dinner. The following day exactly the same thing happened, and he had to content himself with his breakfast and supper rations for the day. He perfectly understood the meaning of it. In smartness and activity he was so far beyond comparison superior to any of the other foretop hands, that the boatswain had not been able to find any excuse for subjecting him to punishment: he was going to try and hit him in another way. On his lonely watch that night Salvé decided what he should do if the trick was practised a third time upon him. It would be better to bring things to a crisis at once than have his strength gradually exhausted by continued insufficiency of food.
The same order being given at the same time next day, he carried it out as speedily as he could, and hurried on then to the round-house, where the others were already at their dinner, with a bowl of meat and soup to every two men.
He sat down by the side of the Irishman, who he saw had a bowl to himself.
“Put the bowl this way,” he said, coolly.
The Irishman merely looked at him contemptuously. He was evidently astonished at his audacity, but went on eating composedly.
Salvé felt that he must not be beaten.
“Life for life, Irishman,” he cried, springing to his feet, and as the other also rose, giving him a blow in the face that sent him backwards on the bench against the wall.
A fierce conflict now ensued. The Irishman got up like a bleeding ox, and catching up a marline-spike that was hanging from the beam, gave Salvé a deep wound in the cheek, the scar of which he carried his whole life through. They drew their knives then; and Salvé’s coolness and activity soon gave him the superiority over his furious and unwieldy opponent. His movements were like those of a steel spring; and pale and smiling, he delivered every blow with such well-calculated effect, that the affair ended with the Irishman, bleeding profusely and half-unconscious, tumbling out of the narrow doorway to save himself.
There were not a few who were glad enough that the dreaded Irishman should have been worsted, and it was to this feeling Salvé was indebted for being allowed to fight it out alone with him. He stuck his knife now into the table by the side of his dish, and, looking round him, asked, “Is there any one else now who would like to keep me out of my meat?”
There was no answer.
“While I am about it,” he continued, without noticing the blood that was running down his face and over his hands, “I’ll settle this matter once for all. I have two days’ rations owing to me. Very well. For the next two days I shall keep one dish to myself. I shall see then what the Irishman or any one else thinks of it.”
The Irishman was confined to his hammock the whole week with wound-fever, and Salvé had for the first time won the respect of the crew. He felt at the same time that he had commenced a desperate struggle, and that if he was to enjoy any sort of security in this company of ruffians whom he had now set at defiance, he must take the game into his own hands, and make himself at least as much feared as the Irishman had been. Accordingly, instead of waiting to be challenged, he deliberately became the aggressor, and set himself to dispense justice as he pleased.
The one who, next to the Irishman, was most dreaded, was a broad-shouldered mulatto, who carried on a petty system of pillage against any one that was not supported, unluckily for him, by any party; and Salvé himself had been obliged one evening to put up
with having his hammock taken down, and the mulatto’s hung in its place. He had seen him in several fights, and had observed his peculiar tactics; the result of his observations being the conviction that the man had not the strength which he was anxious to make the others think he had. In pursuance of this policy, he had picked a quarrel with him on the head of that matter of the hammock, and with a similarly decisive result. The mulatto rejoiced in the name of Januarius, and Salvé accordingly requested him to remember that there was something still owing to him for the eleven other months of the year. He was a cur by nature, and never seemed to have the slightest desire to renew the struggle afterwards, which was not the case with the Irishman, with whom Salvé perceived, directly the man came on deck again, that a fresh trial of strength was inevitable.
An opportunity was not long in offering, and Salvé seized it at once, so that the challenge might come from him. The Irishman had taken a fancy to the boots of the wretched Spaniard who was ill, and was now wearing them.
“Irishman,” said Salvé, as the other passed him, when they were lounging about after dinner, “that is an awkward pair of boots you have on there. If you take my advice you’ll return them to their owner, or—I shall have to pull them off you.”
The Irishman glared at him, but turned pale at the last threat; and Salvé’s eye seemed to light up at the prospect of carrying it out. The former made the mistake of preparing to defend himself instead of taking the aggressive, and in a moment was knocked down and stunned for an instant by a couple of unexpected blows from Salvé, who flew at him like a tiger-cat. The crew gathered round. The Irishman seized a heavy iron pump-handle as a weapon, and Salvé a handspike; and Salvé kept his word. He pulled the boots off as the other lay senseless on the deck, and took them down to the Spaniard.
In point of physical strength, Salvé was far from being the equal of many of these men, who, he knew very well, were now only looking out for an occasion to get the better of him. His only chance was to take the initiative on all occasions, and to seem the most reckless and the most careless of life, and the most eager to fight of them all. He therefore flew at his man without hesitation on the slightest provocation, and whenever he threatened took care to keep his word.