Morgan Robertson

“ But, either because thirteen men had sat down to that table, or because the Fates were unusually freakish that day, it was destined that, beyond the initial glass of whisky, not a man present should partake of Captain Benson's dinner. On deck things had been happening, and just as the host had filled the last plate for himself, a wet, bedraggled, dirty little man, his tarry clothing splashed with the slime of the deck, his eyes flaming green, his face expanded to a smile of ferocity, appeared in the forward doorway, holding a cocked revolver which covered them all. ”

“ Gentlemen, there is untold wealth in the hull out there which your fire has sunk. It is, verily, the root of all evil; let us hope that it remains at the bottom of the sea."
"Bars of gold—bags of diamonds!" said Mr. Duncan. "Come on board, Mr. Todd; we'll see what the captain thinks."
At dinner in the brig's cabin that evening—as a prelude to which Mr. Todd said grace—his account of the wealth spread out on Captain Swarth's cabin table after the taking of the passenger-ship was something to arouse interest in a less worldly man than Captain Bunce. ”

“ Mr. Clarkson had incidentally informed his gun-captain, who told the gun-crew; and from them the news went down the hoist and spread. Men swore louder over this; for though they did not want Finnegan around and in the way, they did not want him to die. Strong natures love those which may be teased; and not a heart was there but contained a soft spot for the helpless, harmless, ever good-natured, drunk, and ridiculous Finnegan.
The bark of an eight-inch gun was heard. Captain Blake saw, through the slits of the conning-tower, a cloud of thinning smoke drifting away from the flag-ship. ”

“ He could see nothing, but knew that the steward had gone below to his store-room. In a minute more a shriek came from the cabin. It rang out again and again, and soon sounded from the companionway: "I'm blind, I'm blind, capt'n. I can't see. I lit the lantern and burned my fingers; but I can't see the light. I'm blind." The steward's voice ended in a howl.
"Shut up, you blasted fool," answered Captain Swarth; "get down there and light up."
"Where's that light?" came the mate's voice in a yell from amidships. "Shank-painter's jammed, Bill. Can't do a thing without a light." ”

“ Captain Bunce turned and swam—there was nothing else to do. Soon he could see a black-eyed, black-mustached man on his quarter-deck delivering orders, and he recognized the thundering voice, but none of the cockney accent of Captain Quirk. Men were already on the yards loosing canvas; and as he turned on his back to rest—for, though fleshy and buoyant, swimming in full uniform fatigued him—he saw his anchor-chains whizzing out the hawse-pipes.
He was picked up by the first boat to put off from the bark, and ordered pursuit ”

“ They knew their captain, and they knew the ropes—on the blackest of dark nights. Blind men climbed aloft, and felt for foot-ropes and gaskets. Blind men on deck felt for sheets, halyards, and braces, and in ten minutes the sails were set, and the brig was charging wildly along before the gale, with two blind men at the wheel endeavoring to keep her straight by the right and left pressure of the wind on their faces. ”

“ Work stopped, and a call down a hatchway stopped the windlass. In ports and dead-lights appeared faces; and those on deck, officers and men, crowded to the rail, some to cross themselves, some to sink on their knees, others to grip the rail tightly, while they stared in silence at the torso and livid face in the moonlight on the sea—the ghastly face of the man they had marooned to die alone, who had been seen later dead on the beach. ”

“ Belchior in every port where the English language is spoken, having earned this prefix by the earnest readiness with which, in his days as second and chief mate, he would whirl belaying-pins, heavers, and handspikes about the decks, and by his success in knocking down, tricing up, and working up sailors who displeased him. With a blow of his fist he had broken the jaw of a man helplessly ironed in the 'tween-deck, and on the same voyage, armed with a simple belaying-pin, had sprung alone into a circle of brandishing sheath-knives and quelled a mutiny. ”

“ Every man of the brig's crew was eager for the work, but few could engage at first; for there was nothing but the forecastle-deck and the bark's rigging to stand upon. Down came the disgraceful black flags the first thing, and up to the gaff went the ensign of Britain. Then they sent down the fore and main lower and topsail yards, and erected them as sheers over the bow and stern, lower ends well socketed in spare anchor-stocks to prevent their sinking in the sand, upper ends lashed together and stayed to each other and to the two anchors ahead and astern. ”

“ All boilers were hot and hissing steam; all fire-pumps were working; all fire-hose connected and spouting streams of water. Perspiring men with strained faces deluged one another while they waited.
In the turrets were the gun-crews, six men to a gun, with an officer above in the sighting-hood; behind the superstructure-ports were the quick-fire men, sailors and marines; and above all, in the fighting-tops, were the sharp-shooters and men who handled the one-pounders and Gatling guns—the easiest-minded of the ship's company, for they could see and breathe. ”

“ Flanking each fleet, far to the rear, were torpedo-boats and destroyers.
"We're outclassed, Dalrymple," said Captain Blake. "There are the ships we expected—Warsaw, Riga, Kharkov, and Moscow, all of fighting weight, and the Obdorsk, Tobolsk, Saratov, and Orenburg. Leaving out the Argyll, we haven't a ship equal to the weakest one there. This fight is the Argyll's."
"And the Argyll is equal to it, captain. All I fear is torpedoes. Of course our ends and superstructure will catch it, and I suppose we'll lose men—all the quick-fire men, perhaps." ”

“ He was alive, and his world was again in motion. Seas lifted and dropped him, occasionally breaking over his head. In the calm of the hollows, he listened for voices of possible rescuers. On the tops of the seas,—ears filled with the roar of the gale,—he shouted, facing to leeward, and searching with strained eyes for sign of the ship or one of her boats. At last he saw a pin-point of light far away, and around it and above it blacker darkness, which was faintly shaped to the outline of a ship and canvas—hove to in the trough, with maintopsail aback, as he knew by its foreshortening. ”

“ Coats and vests were flung off, belaying-pins and capstan-bars seized; inarticulate, half-uttered imprecations punctuated by pistol reports drowned the storm of abuse with which the mates justified the shot, and two distinct bands of men swayed and zig-zagged about the deck, the center of each an officer fighting according to his lights—shooting as he could between blows of fists and clubs. Then the smoke of battle thinned, and two men with sore heads and bleeding faces retreated painfully and hurriedly to the cabin, followed by snarling maledictions and threats. ”

“ In the morning he removed the bandages and took in the sight of his state-room fittings: the bulkhead, his desk, chronometer, cutlass, and clothing hanging on the hooks. It was a joyous sight, and he shouted in gladness. He could not see with his right eye and but dimly with his left, but a scrutiny of his face in a mirror disclosed deep lines that had not been there, distorted eyelids, and the left side where the coffee had scalded puffed to a large, angry blister. He tied up his face, leaving his left eye free, and went on deck. ”

“ The tide went down the beach, the typhoon whirled its raging center off to sea, and the tropic moon shone out, lighting up, between the beach and barrier reef, a heaving stretch of oily lagoon on which appeared and disappeared hundreds of shark-fins quickly darting, and, out on the barrier reef, perched high, yet still pounded by the ocean combers raised by the storm, a fragment of ship's stern with a stump of mizzenmast. ”

“ A forceful malediction came from the tug captain, and a whirling monkey-wrench from the hand of the engineer, who had listened from the engine-room door. It struck Elisha's chronometer and knocked it off the house, box and all, into the sea. He answered the profanity in kind, and sent an iron belaying-pin at the engineer; but it only dented the tug's rail, and with these compliments the two craft separated, the tug steaming back to her scows.
"That lessens our chance just so much," growled Elisha, as he joined the rest. "Now we can't do all we agreed to." ”

“ No armored cruiser may withstand the fire of a battle-ship. The Lancaster, leading the Argyll, received through her eight-inch water-line belt the heavy shot and shell of the Moscow and Orenburg. Nine- and eleven-inch shell fire, sent by Canet and Hontoria guns, makes short work of eight-inch armor, and the doomed Lancaster settled and disappeared, her crew yelling, her screws turning, and her guns firing until the water swamped her. ”

“ Clad in yellow oilskins and sou'wester, he stood by the after-companionway, intently examining through a pair of glasses the wallowing steamer to leeward, barely distinguishable in the half-light and driving spindrift. On the main-deck a half-dozen men paced up and down, sheltered by the weather rail; forward, two others walked the deck by the side of the forward house, but never allowed their march to extend past the after-corner; and at the wheel stood a little man who sheltered a cheerful face under the lee of a big coat-collar, and occasionally peeped out at the navigator. ”

“ The door on the level of the main-deck leading into the mast was found to be wedged fast by the blow of a projectile. Men, naked and black, sprawled about the wreckage breathing fresh air, were ordered to get up and to rig a ladder outside. They did so, and Mr. Clarkson ascended to the ragged end of the hollow stump and looked down. Standing at the wheel, steering the drifting ship with one hand and holding an empty bottle in the other, was a man with torn clothing and bloody face. ”

“ Before he recovered he had been ironed to a stanchion in the 'tween-deck, and entered in the captain's official log for threatening life. And by this time the dunnage had been searched, a few sheath-knives tossed overboard, and the remaining ten men were moodily heaving in the chain.
And so, with a crippled crew of schooner sailors, the square-rigger Almena was towed to sea, smoldering rebellion in one end of her, the power of the law in the other—murder in the heart of every man on board. ”

“ How many years would it take you to save money to equal your share of the salvage if you had yanked that tramp and the schooner into New York?"
"It would take more than one lifetime," answered the captain, a little sadly. "A skipper on a mail-boat is the biggest fool that goes to sea."
The liner did not reach quarantine until after sundown, hence remained there through the night. As she was lifting her anchor in the morning, preparatory to steaming up to her dock, the crew of the Rosebud, refreshed by food and sleep, but still weak and nerveless, came on deck to witness a harrowing sight. ”

“ Captain Blake swallowed a generous portion of the whisky.
"The fool!" mused the navigator, as he looked through the peep-hole. "The whole world is watching him to-day, and he turns to whisky. That's it, dammit; that's the bond of sympathy: Blake and Finnegan, Finnegan and Blake—dipsomaniacs. Lord, I never thought. I've seen him drunker than Finnegan, and if it wasn't for his position and obligations, he'd see spiders, too." ”

“ Five months later the Almena lay at an outer mooring-buoy in Callao Roads, again ready for sea, but waiting. With her at the anchorage were representatives of most of the maritime nations. English ships and barks with painted ports and spider-web braces, high-sided, square-sterned American half-clippers, clumsy, square-bowed "Dutchmen," coasting-brigs of any nation, lumber-schooners from "'Frisco," hide-carriers from Valparaiso, pearl-boats and fishermen, and even a couple of homesick Malay proas from the west crowded the roadstead; for the guano trade was booming, and Callao prosperous. ”

“ Soon the walls could not be seen for the pushing, jostling crowd, but everywhere the terrible, silent war went on until there came a time when fighting ceased; for each must look out for himself. They seemed to be in an immense cave, and the tide was broken into cross-currents rushing violently to the accompaniment of rhythmical thunder. They were shaken, jostled, pushed about and pushed together, hundreds of the smaller creatures dying from the pressure. ”

“ Standing now with one foot on the fore-hatch, waving his long arms and objurgating the scowling men at the pumps, he might easily have seemed, to any one beyond the reach of his language, to be a clergyman exhorting them. Captain Swarth watched him with an amused look on his sunburnt face, and muttered: "Good man, every inch of him, but he can't handle men." ”

“ They flung themselves with furious energy into the parade, fighting and biting all they could reach. A hundred at a time would pounce on one of the large red-and-gray creatures, almost hiding it from view; then, and before they had passed out of sight, they would fall off and disperse, and the once living victim would come with them, in parts. The smaller, active swimmers fled, but if one was caught, he suffered; a quick dart, a tangle of tentacles, an embrace of the wicked flippers, a bite—and a dead body floated on. ”

“ Equipped thus, the Wilmington, bound for Melbourne, discharged her tug and pilot off Sandy Hook one summer morning, and, with a fresh quartering wind and raising sea, headed for the southeast. The day was spent in getting her sail on, and in the "licking into shape" of the men as fast as they recovered their senses. Oaths and missiles flew about the deck, knock-downs were frequent, and by eight bells in the evening, when the two mates chose the watches,—much as boys choose sides in a ball game,—the sailors were well convinced that their masters lived aft. ”

“ Escorting the boat was a fleet of dorsal fins, and erect in the stern-sheets was a white-faced woman, holding a child in one arm while she endeavored to remove a circular life-buoy from around her waist. At first heading straight for the part of the beach where the open-eyed boy was watching, the boat now changed its course and by desperate exertion of the rowers reached a position from which it could drift to leeward of the point and its deadly maelstrom. ”

“ As poets and sailors believe that ships have souls, it may be that she gloried in her shame, like other fallen creatures; for her large, slanting oval hawse-pipes and boot-top stripe gave a fine, Oriental sneer to her face-like bow, and there was slur and insult to respectable craft in the lazy dignity with which she would swash through the fleet on the port tack, compelling vessels on the starboard tack to give up their right of way or be rammed; for she was a large craft, and there was menace in her solid, one-piece jib-boom, thick as an ordinary mainmast. ”

“ In her maidenly heart she may want to be kissed, but she cannot help resisting. She obeys the same instinct that impelled this wild girl to spring from the outstretched arms of the boy and go screaming out of the cave and down the beach in simulated terror—an instinct inherited from the prehistoric mother, who fled for dear life and a whole skin from a man behind armed with a club and bent upon marriage. ”

“ When the fog shifted, the pursuing English war-brig that had riddled the pirate saw nothing but the peaceful old tub ahead, and went on into the fog, looking for the other.
"Any port in a storm, Angel," remarked Captain Swarth, as he flashed his keen eyes over the rickety fabric aloft; "but we'll find a better one soon. How do the boys stand the pumping?"
Mr. Angel Todd, first mate and quartermaster, filled a black pipe before answering. ”

“ You cannot take an Englishman's ship from under him—homeward bound and close to port—and drag him to sea again on a diet of salt codfish without impinging on his sanity. When day broke they looked and saw the hawsers slipping over the schooner's rail, and afterward a fountain of fish arising from her hatches to follow the hawsers overboard.
"What's de game, I wunner?" asked Martin. "Tryin' to starve deyselves?"
"Dunno," answered Elisha, with a serious expression. "They're not doin' it for nothin'. They're wavin' their hats at us. Somethin' on their minds." ”