James B. Connolly

“ Inshore, they knew, the high surf was booming; and they made sail then, and for a while thought they could weather it; but when the whistling devils caught the rotten, age-eaten, untested canvas—whoosh! countless strips of dirty, rusty canvas were riding the clouded heavens like some unwashed witches.
By and by he caught an answering call
Tide and wind were taking her toward the beach, and Bowen, everybody, even the unimaginative viking in command, could picture that beach and the surf piling up on it. ”

“ Cogan looked for the flash of the heavy blade, but already Torellas' right arm had gone forward, that eye of his had marked the little vital spot, and, as the bull lowered his head and lunged to gore him, the blade was driven forward, and onto the point of it rushed the bull. The blade went home—clear to the hilt—eighteen inches or so. Before the people could clear their choked-up throats to applaud, before many could realize what had happened, the bull was stumbling to his knees and Torellas was unwrapping the cape from his left forearm. ”

“ They paced the length of the deck twice before Kieran spoke again.
"They wonder at the decay of our merchant marine. I wonder did they ever stop to think of what men—seamen—think of the service? In the days of sailing ships a man going to sea met with real danger and hardship, and they developed courage and skill and character of some kind. What training does he get to take the place of that now? He's a hand nowadays, a helper, a lumper—not a sailor—on a great big hulk to which disaster is almost impossible." ”

“ The father died aboard Captain Blaise's ship. He was an American who had married abroad without consulting his father, and the old gentleman made such a fuss about it that the young man had stayed away—intended to remain away and renounce his heritage; but at last the father had sent for him, and he was then on his way home. But you should have heard Captain Blaise tell it. He made us feel that mother's love for her baby, that mother who was dead before he picked her up, and made us feel, too, what a man the father was. What an actor he is! ”

“ If Cogan had never seen a bull-ring, he would right away have known this in Lima for one. It was a perfect circle, about two hundred feet across, packed with what looked like hard sand and surrounded by a stout stockade, and with seats enough for eight or ten thousand people. The bull-fighters had not minded when he followed them in, and now he took a seat on the empty benches and watched them at practice. They had a bull, a lively one, but a well trained one, too, for when he knocked one of them over he would stand still and not try to trample anybody. ”

“ And I'm Cogan. And I'm Kieran, pump-man on this wall-sided oil-tanker at fifty-five per month."
"But why?"
"Why, why?" He sat up. The passenger could see the thick, dark eyebrows draw together. "Why? Why anything? What would you do?"
"Forget it."
"Forget it. But can you?—everything? No—you betcher you can't. And it's every man to his own cure. Some I know get drunk and fight. And some I know who get drunk and cry. Some worry their friends to death, and some others beat their wives. Every man to his way. I have no wife"—he laughed softly—"and I want to keep my friends. ”

“ There's the best fighting fish of them all—the thrasher. The thrasher's the boy with the wallop. He's the boy that chases the whale, and leaps high out of the water, and snaps his long, limber tail, and bam! down he comes on that big slob of a whale and breaks his back. All the wise old whales, they take to deep water when they see a thrasher hunting trouble. It's the foolish young whales that don't know enough to let the thrasher alone."
Noyes noted that the crew laughed more loudly at the bosun's rough jeers than at the more sharply pointed comment of the pump-man. ”

“ Her father and Juan were in the outer room.
"These two clasped him to their bosoms. 'You brave one,' said her father—and 'Bueno Americano!'—said Uncle Juan, and patted him on the head as if he were a son. 'He will live—Oh, be sure of that. But never will he fight bulls again. Never, never. And that is sad. But we have him. Let us not mourn. And you'—Juan raised both hands high—'you and Torellas—I love you both.'
"Cogan thought he heard her voice, the voice which never in his life he had heard, and hesitated. ”

“ Our big steamship officers these days—outside of the navy—don't get the kind of work that keeps men up to the mark, and not getting it they grow soft—their bodies and their souls become flabby. Engineer officers nowadays have the work cut out for them and they are doing good work, but the bridge officers are no longer men of the sea—they're clerks, agents in floating hotels. And the crew take their tone from the officers. When the commander's weak, your whole outfit is apt to weaken, especially under a strain. ”

“ Then he fell forward and over the side of the raft. There was the gentlest of splashes, a patch of red—a cluster of bubbles which burst like sighs.
"Well!" said the bartender, and held up the revolver in wonder. "I never thought I'd live to kill a man!" He looked to see how the others had taken it, but they were paying no attention to him. He saw Jan holding the baby and trying to hush its little cries for its mother, while the baby's mother was pressing the tips of her fingers gently against the upper part of the injured woman's right breast.
"You mustn't die! You mustn't die!" ”

“ Straight out from the breakwater Baldwin kept her going. Slow, heavy, pounding work; and now two hours gone, and no light-ship yet. He swung her about, a ticklish feat, and paralleled the beach to the north, and just off the beach, after an hour of northing, he spied the distress signals—two, three, yes, and four big torches. ”

“ Ferrero got desperate and threw the cape from him, and it caught on the horns, and while the bull was entangled and enraged afresh, Cogan stepped close, picked out the little spot the size of a fifty-cent piece at the head of the spine, stood on his toes and came down with all his force. It wasn't any approved matador's stroke, for Cogan, standing behind instead of in front of the bull's horns, drove home in just the reverse fashion, but it wasn't a bad stroke at that. The knife went home. The bull rolled over, and Cogan stood there and looked and looked. Nobody was more surprised than he. ”

“ The banderilleros had to stand in front of the bull, with a stake in each hand, and, as he charged, to step in between his horns and reach over and plant a stake on each side of his neck. 'It is most simple,' explained Ferrero, as he left Cogan to do his part—'only—surely—we must not make mistake.' And Cogan could not help thinking that bull-fighting was like a thousand other games, a man mustn't make mistakes. ”

“ From California, Mexico, Jamaica they were, and had come on just as soon as they could when they heard about the Revolution, thinking that with the crowd of Americans who were sure to rush down to the peninsula, there ought to be a living for a few clever ladies like themselves. But up to this time the rush hadn't got beyond war correspondents and navy people, and now the poor things were sitting to tables and looking as if they wished somebody would loosen up and buy a drink—even if it was no more than a glass of moxie. ”

“ Show yer?" The big man peered around the ship. Surely it was a mirage.
At the very first whoop from the big man the pump-man had stopped dead, softly set down his suit-case, and waited. Now he stepped swiftly toward the big man. And to the passenger, looking and listening from the cabin mess-room, it looked like the finest kind of a battle; but just then the captain came up the gang-plank calling out, "Cast off those lines. And don't fall asleep over it, either." The deck force scattered to carry out his orders. The pump-man picked up his suit-case and went on to his quarters. ”

“ We were now heading about a point off the edge of the outer line of heavy breakers, and as the Bess had the least free-board of any ship of her size sailing the trades, she was soon carrying on her deck her full allowance of loose water. Amidships, when she lay quietly to anchor, a long-armed man could lean over her rail and all but touch his fingers in the sea. ”

“ Or perhaps your mind don't run that way?"
"I don't see," retorted the passenger, "that that barge has to stick there forever. What's to prevent her from making a leap and fetching up suddenly, and if she did she'd part that hawser like a piece of twine."
"Yes, but she won't make the leap—not till something outside of herself drives her to it. If a sea should rise, or a gale of wind, she might. But it would take something like that. In the meantime she points this way and that, slewing now to this side—see—and now to the other—but never getting away from this ship which has her in tow. ”

“ I know your kind that bully and starve your crew, and won't have a man on your ship that you can't bully and starve. And so you set your bully bosun to do me—do me to death, if he had to. And when he's not clever enough nor able enough, you'd put me in irons—in irons here on the high seas—out here where no law can get you!"
The first officer was now on the deck beneath the pump-man. "You'd better come down, Kieran. It will be the safest way in the end." ”

“ Ah-h, that is most hard luck, but do not despair. I, too, was a sailor—one time. One time only, gracias a Dios! My ancestors, I think, were of the land entirely. The sea-sickness—pir-r-h—no, no, not for me. But do not mind. But pardon, señor'—he turned to Ferrero—'attend to me, Ferrero. I am grieved to-day. It is the señora again. What matters it whether a man is a muletero, gaucho, toreador, or what? Torellas, now, has been all—so have I, her brother-in-law—or a seller of hats or a member of the cabinet? What, I ask you'—he turned to Cogan—'are we señor? We are men or we are not? ”

“ Kieran left to go to supper, and the passenger noted the deference of the crew toward him. Not one who found himself in his way but hopped swiftly aside to give him gangway.
"How conducive to high judgment, how accelerating to respect is success," mused the passenger. "Two hours ago hardly one of them who did not set him down for a half-crazy, or, at least, an over-sanguine visionary—but now—they bound like stags before him, and none more propitiatingly agile than the former satellites of our deposed bosun. ”

“ And now I could not recollect of his having ever killed or maimed except in defence of his life or property; and yet that night in Momba I had shot, caring not whether I killed or no. Self-defence? At the instant of shooting I had thought, had almost spoken it aloud: "There! There's for a channel to let the starlight into your unclean brain." Self-defence? Tish! The Governor's son desired, possibly loved in his way, a girl that I had known no longer than I knew him, and there it was—I loved her, too! Captain Blaise himself had probably never killed on less provocation ”

“ Indian women went by with loaded baskets of fruit, and other people drove little burros in carts filled with eggs, chickens, and green stuff; and men and women, with fish to sell in big dishes on their heads, came sliding by, and all yelled loud enough to wake a watch below. Girls with baskets of flowers went by, and one, looking up, spied Cogan and stopped and held her basket up and made a motion for him to buy. ”

“ With one hand Captain Blaise held the chart so Shiela still could read it; with the other he reached through the skylight opening for his long glass. After a long look I saw that he did not resume his narrative. By that I knew that the stranger was troubling him.
Shiela came below to see me. The traces of tears were in her eyes.
"It's a large ship to the northward," she said. "From something Captain Blaise whispered to father it may be a man-o'-war, though I hope not. But what have you done since I've been gone? You mustn't feel put out when I have to go on deck. ”

“ A notorious little craft, the Whist, one of those legacies which sometimes fall to the Service; the department always going to fix her up, and always putting it off until the next appropriation. Her old boilers leaked, and in a sea-way her old seams gaped, and what between keeping steam up and her bilge pumped out, Harty and Pete could hardly find time to brace their feet whenever she attempted, as she did about every fifteen seconds, to heave them across the floor. ”