Thrice Armed

"Well," said the other, "I've seen his eyes."

Just then the man they were discussing turned toward the bridge, from which the skipper was beckoning him. A minute or two later they went into the room beneath it, and the engineer sat down looking at the man in front of him with narrow, half-open eyes. The latter was young and spruce in trim uniform, a man of no great education, who had a favorable opinion of himself.

"Can't you shove her along a little faster, Robertson?" he said. "We'll be thirty knots behind our usual run at noon."

"No," said the engineer, in a curious listless drawl. "I've been letting the revolutions down. That high-pressure piston's getting on my nerves again."

"Shouldn't have thought you had any worth speaking of," said the skipper, with a quick sign of impatience. "You give one the impression that they've gone to pieces long ago. Take a drink, and tone them up."

He flung a bottle on the table, and watched his companion's long greasy fingers fumble at it with a look of disgust. Robertson half-filled his glass with the yellow spirit, and drained it with slow enjoyment. Then he breathed hard, and, leaning his elbows on the table, looked at the skipper heavily.

"Well," he said, "you want something?"

"I do," said the skipper, and taking down a chart unrolled one part of it. "I want to shake her up until we get away from the Shasta, for one thing. Wheelock has been hanging on to us as far as his boat's speed will allow it the last two or three runs. I can't quite figure what he's after."

Robertson looked almost startled for a moment as though an unpleasant thought had occurred to him, but his heavy, puffy face sank into its usual lethargicness again.

"Wants to scoop your passengers. Done it once or twice," he said. "Well?"

"For another thing, I want to get round this nest of islands before the breeze that's brewing comes down on us. It will be a snorter. If I were surer of your – old engines, I'd try the inside passage, though the tides run strong. Now, if I head her up well clear of the islands I'm throwing miles away, and letting the Shasta in ahead of me. Wheelock has apparently an engineer who will stand by him."

Again a curious furtive look that suggested uneasiness crept into Robertson's eyes.

"He's always just ahead or just astern, and we've altered our sailing bill twice," he said, as if communing with himself.

"I guess you dropped on the reason. Anyway, if you can give me a little more steam, we'll be clear of this unhallowed conglomeration of reefs and tides by this time to-morrow. If it's necessary, you can run her easier afterward."

Robertson laid a grimy finger on the chart. "She'll be feeling the indraught now – it's running ebb," he said. "If I can read the weather, you'll soon have the breeze strong on your starboard bow."

The skipper flung a swift glance at him, in which there was a trace of astonishment. "How'd you come to know just where she is?"

"Taffrail log," said Robertson. "I generally run a rough reckoning in my head. Well, you want another knot or two out of her until you have the big bight to lee of you? See what I can do, though I'd sooner take a knot off her. That high-press piston's worrying me."

He jerked himself heavily to his feet, and when he shambled out of the room the skipper, who made a little gesture of relief, took up his dividers and laid their points on the chart. One of them rested in the middle of the mark left by the engineer's greasy finger. After that he rolled the chart up and stowed it away from the others in a drawer beneath his berth, and the look of annoyance in his face had its significance. He did not like his engineer, and although he had no particular reason for distrusting him he remembered that when the latter had found it necessary to stop his engines at sea, as he had done once or twice during the last trip or two, it had generally been in the last spot a nervous skipper would have desired. Then he went out, and climbed to his bridge.

"You can head her out two points more to westward," he said to the mate.

"Very good!" said the latter. "Still, we decided that the course she was on would keep her off the land."

"We did," said the skipper dryly. "Anyway, you'll head her out. We're going to have a wicked breeze from the west before this time to-night."

In the meanwhile the second engineer was leaning out from a slippery platform that swung and slanted as the Adelaide lurched over the long gray seas, listening to the dull pounding of the high-pressure engine. His face was as near as he could get it to the big cylinder, and after glancing at a little glass tube he looked down at a man with a tallow swab who clung to the iron ladder beneath him.

"I don't like the way she's slamming, Jake," he said. "There's mighty little oil going into her, either. Who's been throttling up the feed?"

"The chief," said the man on the ladder. "He was slinging it red-hot at Charley 'bout heaving oil away. Guess I'd have fed it to her by the gallon after seeing that new piston-ring sprung on."

The second pursed up his face, for there is an etiquette in these affairs at sea which the man, who had come there fresh from a sawmill, apparently did not understand. "Well," he said, "I guess Mr. Robertson bossed the putting in of that ring, and he knows his business. Anyway, if he tells you you will run her dry."

Then a big, loosely-hung figure came shambling down the ladder, and the second withdrew. However, he stood among the columns below, and watched his superior stop and glance at the tube through which the oil flowed before he went about his work again. Robertson was apparently satisfied, and after slouching round the engine-room and unscrewing a little further the throttle valve which turns steam on to the engines, he crawled back to his greasy room. He sloughed off his jacket and boots, and drawing a bottle from beneath the mattress of his bunk poured himself a stiff drink of whisky before he stretched himself out.

He slept soundly, and did not hear the roar of the engines below him when the Adelaide flung her stern out and the lifted screw whirred madly in the air. The thud of green water on her deck passed unheeded too, though the second heard it as he watched the maze of clanking, banging steel, until the young third relieved him. The latter came down dripping, and shook a little shower of brine off him when he stopped beside his superior.

"It's blowing quite fresh, and she seems to be plugging it mighty hard since you shook her up," he said. "The chief must have given up worrying about that piston, or he wouldn't have had you take the extra knot or two out of her."

"Keep your eye on the – thing," said the second. "It's going to make us trouble yet. If I were boss of this job, I'd slow her down right now instead of pressing her."

He went up and also went to sleep, and, since the telegraph stood at full-speed ahead, the young third clung to a greasy rail, all eyes and ears, with one hand on the gear that would throttle down the steam, while the rolling grew more vicious and the plunges steeper. Quick as he was, there was a thunderous clamor every now and then as the big compound engines, which were twice the size of those of a modern boat of equal tonnage, ran away, and he commenced to long for the close of his watch while the perspiration dripped from him. He had not been very long at sea, and there is a responsibility upon the man on watch when the whirring screw swings clear. At last there was a heavier plunge than usual, and, though the third did all he could, the big engines span and clamored furiously as the stern went up. Then there was a harsh, grinding scream, and a crash. After that came sudden stillness, and the third frantically span the wheel that cut off the steam, while grimy men went sliding and floundering over the slippery plates and platforms toward the high-pressure engine.

The sudden portentous silence and the roar of blown-off steam that followed it roused every man on board the ship, and Robertson crawled sluggishly out of his berth. He had reasons for knowing exactly what had happened, and he showed no sign of haste, but there was a furtive look in his eyes, and he sat on the ledge of the bunk shivering a little while he thrust his hand beneath the mattress again. He felt that he needed bracing, for he had once spent several anxious hours in a half-swamped lifeboat after the steamer to which it belonged had gone ashore, and he was aware that somebody is usually held accountable for mishaps at sea. There was not very much left in the whiskey-bottle when he thrust it out of sight again, and shambled out of his room. The Adelaide was rolling viciously, and when he reached the engine-room he came near falling down the slippery ladder. Indeed, most men would have gone down it headlong if they had braced themselves as he had done, but habitual caution made him feel for a good hold, and he descended safely to where his subordinates were clustered beneath the high-pressure cylinder. Their faces showed tense and anxious in the flickering light of the lamps which swung wildly as the steamer rolled, and the young third engineer hastily related what had brought about the stoppage.

"Rig the lifting tackles while she cools," said Robertson. "Get the stud-nuts loose. We'll have the cover off soon as we can."

Then he turned and saw, as he had partly expected, a quartermaster standing just inside the door above him, and with a word or two to his second he crawled back up the ladder and went with the man to the room beneath the bridge. The young skipper who stood there with a furrowed face regarded him grimly.

"How long are you going to be before you start her again?" he asked.

Robertson blinked at him with furtive, half-open eyes. "I don't quite know – it's a heavy job. We have to heave the piston up," he said. "Besides that, she has knocked things loose below."

The skipper appeared to have some difficulty in restraining himself.

"Unless you can get steam on her in the next few hours she'll be breaking up by morning. The reefs to lee of us are not the kind of ones I'd like to put a steamer ashore on, either."

Then he took a bottle from a drawer with a little grimace of disgust, for he remembered that skippers are comparatively plentiful, and the man he could scarcely keep his hands off was for some reason apparently a favorite with his employer.

"Oh, take a drink, and hump yourself," he said. "I guess that's the only thing to put a move on you."

Robertson hesitated for a moment, for he realized that he had still a part to play. Then it occurred to him that his companion might draw his own conclusions as to his reasons for any unusual abstemiousness, and he helped himself liberally.

"Well," he said when he had drained his glass, "I'll be getting back again. Do what I can – but it's a heavy job."

He shuffled out, but his potations were commencing to have their effect, and when he reached the top platform in the engine-room he felt carefully for the rail that sloped as a guide to the ladder. It was as usual greasy and Robertson's grip not particularly sure, while the Adelaide rolled wickedly to lee just then. As the result of it, her engineer went down the ladder much as a sack of coal would have done, and fell in a limp heap on the floor-plates with a red gash on his head. The second stooped down and shook him before he turned to the other men.

"Heave him on to the tool locker, one or two of you," he said. "We can't pack him up to his room with this job in front of us. See if you can fix that cut for him, Varney, and then go up and tell the skipper."

A man went up the ladder, and the skipper, who sent an urgent message back with him, turned to the little cluster of miners who were waiting about his room.

"Something wrong with the engines?" asked one.

"There is," said the skipper, who knew his men and would not have admitted to the ordinary run of passengers what he did to them. "It will probably be some hours before they start again, and the shore's not very far away to lee. If you feel inclined to lend a hand at getting sail on her I guess it would be advisable."

The miners were willing, and set about it cheerfully, though it was blowing hard now and the long deck heaved and slanted under them. There is very seldom an unnecessary man on board a steamer, and the Adelaide's mate was glad of a few extra strong arms just then. That they were drenched with bitter spray and occasionally flung against winch and bulwarks did not greatly trouble them. Things of that kind did not count after facing the wild turmoil of northern rivers and living through destroying hazes of blizzard-driven snow. So they got the canvas on her, forestaysail, gaff-headed foresail, mainstaysail, and a blackened three-cornered strip abaft the mainmast, and the skipper felt a trifle easier when he found that he could steer her. She crawled through the water at perhaps two knots an hour, dragging her idle screw, but she also drove to leeward nearer the deadly reefs.

CHAPTER XXIX

UNDER COMPULSION

It was in the gray of the morning when Jimmy saw her, a dim patch of hull and four strips of sail that heaved and dipped between the seas. He also saw the faint loom of land behind her, and turned to Lindstrom, who stood beside him, with a grim smile.