by Jack London
CHAPTER XVI
Two days later, as the steamer _Mariposa_ plied her customary routebetween Tahiti and San Francisco, the passengers ceased playing deckquoits, abandoned their card games in the smoker, their novels and deckchairs, and crowded the rail to stare at the small boat that skimmed tothem across the sea before a light following breeze. When Big John,aided by Ah Moy and Kwaque, lowered the sail and unstepped the mast,titters and laughter arose from the passengers. It was contrary to alltheir preconceptions of mid-ocean rescue of ship-wrecked mariners fromthe open boat.
It caught their fancy that this boat was the Ark, what of its freightageof bedding, dry goods boxes, beer-cases, a cat, two dogs, a whitecockatoo, a Chinaman, a kinky-headed black, a gangly pallid-haired giant,a grizzled Dag Daughtry, and an Ancient Mariner who looked every inch thepart. Him a facetious, vacationing architect's clerk dubbed Noah, and sogreeted him.
"I say, Noah," he called. "Some flood, eh? Located Ararat yet?"
"Catch any fish?" bawled another youngster down over the rail.
"Gracious! Look at the beer! Good English beer! Put me down for acase!"
Never was a more popular wrecked crew more merrily rescued at sea. Theyoung blades would have it that none other than old Noah himself had comeon board with the remnants of the Lost Tribes, and to elderly femalepassengers spun hair-raising accounts of the sinking of an entire tropicisland by volcanic and earthquake action.
"I'm a steward," Dag Daughtry told the _Mariposa's_ captain, "and I'll beglad and grateful to berth along with your stewards in the glory-hole.Big John there's a sailorman, an' the fo'c's'le 'll do him. The Chink isa ship's cook, and the nigger belongs to me. But Mr. Greenleaf, sir, isa gentleman, and the best of cabin fare and staterooms'll be none toogood for him, sir."
And when the news went around that these were part of the survivors ofthe three-masted schooner, _Mary Turner_, smashed into kindling wood andsunk by a whale, the elderly females no more believed than had they theyarn of the sunken island.
"Captain Hayward," one of them demanded of the steamer's skipper, "coulda whale sink the _Mariposa_?"
"She has never been so sunk," was his reply.
"I knew it!" she declared emphatically. "It's not the way of ships to goaround being sunk by whales, is it, captain?"
"No, madam, I assure you it is not," was his response. "Nevertheless,all the five men insist upon it."
"Sailors are notorious for their unveracity, are they not?" the ladyvoiced her flat conclusion in the form of a tentative query.
"Worst liars I ever saw, madam. Do you know, after forty years at sea, Icouldn't believe myself under oath."
* * * * *
Nine days later the _Mariposa_ threaded the Golden Gate and docked at SanFrancisco. Humorous half-columns in the local papers, written in thecustomary silly way by unlicked cub reporters just out of grammar school,tickled the fancy of San Francisco for a fleeting moment in that thesteamship _Mariposa_ had rescued some sea-waifs possessed of a cock-and-bull story that not even the reporters believed. Thus, silly reportorialunveracity usually proves extraordinary truth a liar. It is the way ofcub reporters, city newspapers, and flat-floor populations which gettheir thrills from moving pictures and for which the real world and allits spaciousness does not exist.
"Sunk by a whale!" demanded the average flat-floor person. "Nonsense,that's all. Just plain rotten nonsense. Now, in the 'Adventures ofEleanor,' which is some film, believe me, I'll tell you what I saw happen. . . "
So Daughtry and his crew went ashore into 'Frisco Town uheralded andunsung, the second following morning's lucubrations of the sea reportersbeing varied disportations upon the attack on an Italian crab fishermanby an enormous jellyfish. Big John promptly sank out of sight in asailors' boarding-house, and, within the week, joined the Sailors' Unionand shipped on a steam schooner to load redwood ties at Bandon, Oregon.Ah Moy got no farther ashore than the detention sheds of the FederalImmigration Board, whence he was deported to China on the next PacificMail steamer. The _Mary Turner's_ cat was adopted by the sailors'forecastle of the _Mariposa_, and on the _Mariposa_ sailed away on theback trip to Tahiti. Scraps was taken ashore by a quartermaster and leftin the bosom of his family.
And ashore went Dag Daughtry, with his small savings, to rent two cheaprooms for himself and his remaining responsibilities, namely, CharlesStough Greenleaf, Kwaque, Michael, and, not least, Cocky. But not forlong did he permit the Ancient Mariner to live with him.
"It's not playing the game, sir," he told him. "What we need is capital.We've got to interest capital, and you've got to do the interesting. Nowthis very day you've got to buy a couple of suit-cases, hire a taxicab,go sailing up to the front door of the Bronx Hotel like good pay and bedamned. She's a real stylish hotel, but reasonable if you want to makeit so. A little room, an inside room, European plan, of course, and thenyou can economise by eatin' out."
"But, steward, I have no money," the Ancient Mariner protested.
"That's all right, sir; I'll back you for all I can."
"But, my dear man, you know I'm an old impostor. I can't stick you uplike the others. You . . . why . . . why, you're a friend, don't yousee?"
"Sure I do, and I thank you for sayin' it, sir. And that's why I'm withyou. And when you've nailed another crowd of treasure-hunters and gotthe ship ready, you'll just ship me along as steward, with Kwaque, andKilleny Boy, and the rest of our family. You've adopted me, now, an' I'myour grown-up son, an' you've got to listen to me. The Bronx is thehotel for you--fine-soundin' name, ain't it? That's atmosphere. Folk'lllisten half to you an' more to your hotel. I tell you, you leaning backin a big leather chair talkin' treasure with a two-bit cigar in yourmouth an' a twenty-cent drink beside you, why that's like treasure. Theyjust got to believe. An' if you'll come along now, sir, we'll trot outan' buy them suit-cases."
Right bravely the Ancient Mariner drove to the Bronx in a taxi,registered his "Charles Stough Greenleaf" in an old-fashioned hand, andtook up anew the activities which for years had kept him free of the poor-farm. No less bravely did Dag Daughtry set out to seek work. This wasmost necessary, because he was a man of expensive luxuries. His familyof Kwaque, Michael, and Cocky required food and shelter; more costly thanthat was maintenance of the Ancient Mariner in the high-class hotel; and,in addition, was his six-quart thirst.
But it was a time of industrial depression. The unemployed problem wasbulking bigger than usual to the citizens of San Francisco. And, asregarded steamships and sailing vessels, there were three stewards forevery Steward's position. Nothing steady could Daughtry procure, whilehis occasional odd jobs did not balance his various running expenses.Even did he do pick-and-shovel work, for the municipality, for threedays, when he had to give way, according to the impartial procedure, toanother needy one whom three days' work would keep afloat a littlelonger.
Daughtry would have put Kwaque to work, except that Kwaque wasimpossible. The black, who had only seen Sydney from steamers' decks,had never been in a city in his life. All he knew of the world wassteamers, far-outlying south-sea isles, and his own island of KingWilliam in Melanesia. So Kwaque remained in the two rooms, cooking andhousekeeping for his master and caring for Michael and Cocky. All ofwhich was prison for Michael, who had been used to the run of ships, ofcoral beaches and plantations.
But in the evenings, sometimes accompanied a few steps in the rear byKwaque, Michael strolled out with Steward. The multiplicity of man-godson the teeming sidewalks became a real bore to Michael, so that man-gods,in general, underwent a sharp depreciation. But Steward, the particulargod of his fealty and worship, appreciated. Amongst so many gods Michaelfelt bewildered, while Steward's Abrahamic bosom became more than everthe one sure haven where harshness and danger never troubled.
"Mind your step," is the last word and warning of twentieth-century citylife. Michael was not slow to learn it, as he conserved his own feetamong the countless thousands of leather-shod feet of men,
ever hurrying,always unregarding of the existence and right of way of a lowly, four-legged Irish terrier.
The evening outings with Steward invariably led from saloon to saloon,where, at long bars, standing on sawdust floors, or seated at tables, mendrank and talked. Much of both did men do, and also did Steward do, ere,his daily six-quart stint accomplished, he turned homeward for bed. Manywere the acquaintances he made, and Michael with him. Coasting seamenand bay sailors they mostly were, although there were many 'longshoremenand waterfront workmen among them.
From one of these, a scow-schooner captain who plied up and down the bayand the San Joaquin and Sacramento rivers, Daughtry had the promise ofbeing engaged as cook and sailor on the schooner _Howard_. Eighty tonsof freight, including deckload, she carried, and in all democracy CaptainJorgensen, the cook, and the two other sailors, loaded and unloaded herat all hours, and sailed her night and day on all times and tides, oneman steering while three slept and recuperated. It was time, and double-time, and over-time beyond that, but the feeding was generous and thewages ran from forty-five to sixty dollars a month.
"Sure, you bet," said Captain Jorgensen. "This cook-feller, Hanson,pretty quick I smash him up an' fire him, then you can come along . . .and the bow-wow, too." Here he dropped a hearty, wholesome hand of toildown to a caress of Michael's head. "That's one fine bow-wow. A bow-wowis good on a scow when all hands sleep alongside the dock or in an anchorwatch."
"Fire Hanson now," Dag Daughtry urged.
But Captain Jorgensen shook his slow head slowly. "First I smash himup."
"Then smash him now and fire him," Daughtry persisted. "There he isright now at the corner of the bar."
"No. He must give me reason. I got plenty of reason. But I want reasonall hands can see. I want him make me smash him, so that all hands say,'Hurrah, Captain, you done right.' Then you get the job, Daughtry."
Had Captain Jorgensen not been dilatory in his contemplated smashing, andhad not Hanson delayed in giving sufficient provocation for a smashing,Michael would have accompanied Steward upon the schooner, _Howard_, andall Michael's subsequent experiences would have been totally differentfrom what they were destined to be. But destined they were, by chanceand by combinations of chance events over which Michael had no controland of which he had no more awareness than had Steward himself. At thatperiod, the subsequent stage career and nightmare of cruelty for Michaelwas beyond any wildest forecast or apprehension. And as to forecastingDag Daughtry's fate, along with Kwaque, no maddest drug-dream could haveapproximated it.