Captain O'Shea

“ As it opened, the quick ear of Captain O'Shea heard the mysterious personage saying to the brisk young man:
"A steamer of the tonnage of this Tyneshire Glen is what I wish. If your investigation has satisfied you that she is thoroughly seaworthy, and in good repair, and Captain Handy also recommends her——"
The door closed behind Captain Handy; and O'Shea, glancing in that direction, smiled cynically, and observed to Johnny Kent:
"Did you size him up? You know the kind. Every big port has them—broken shipmasters, disrated mates, beach combers that aren't fit to take a scow to sea." ”

“ Captain O’Shea looked on with an air of fatherly interest. After all, this happy family of his had made a prosperous voyage of it. Dreams of rehabilitation cheered these broken wanderers. They would go home. No more for them the misery, the heartache, the humiliation of the tropical tramp. Their riches might slip through their fingers, but they would make the most of golden opportunity. Like poor McDougal, they had thrown all regrets away.
“’Tis share and share alike,” said O’Shea, “but there is a red-headed sailor-man at anchor on a farm in Maine and I think he has a wife somewheres. ”

“ We have a ship-shape little settlement, if I do say it meself.”
“An exploring expedition? I shall be delighted,” cried she, unconsciously glancing at the tent which hid the chaperon and also Gerald Van Steen.
They strolled a little way without speaking. O’Shea halted to gaze at the wreck of the Fearless. With quick sympathy, the girl understood and made no comment. He turned away with a sorrowful smile and broke the silence.
“’Tis strange how close a man’s ship is to his heart. I wish I did not have to see her.”
“There will be other ships for a man like you, Captain O’Shea,” said Nora. ”

“ The commander nodded and profanely replied that he knew nothing good of Captain O’Shea or the Fearless. It was an act of God that they would make no more voyages.
“Much obliged for your kind wishes,” resumed O’Shea. “I am sorry to have put you to so much trouble. I will waste no more words. I have in me party the young man standing yonder on the beach and two ladies that I picked up adrift from a stranded American yacht. ’Tis not right for them to suffer any longer. I want ye to carry them to port.” ”

“ It satisfied the engineer’s curiosity. He had no great amount of imagination, and although he was ready to share his last dollar with the helpless Maguire, he felt no further call to pursue the mystery of his wrongs.
Captain O’Shea was very differently affected. He had not forsaken the quest of adventure. His soul was not content with cabbages and cows. The world beyond the horizon was always calling in his ears. As children are fond of fairy-stories, so his fancy was lured by the bizarre, the unexpected, the unknown. Your true adventurer is, after all, only a boy who has never grown up. ”

“ He was snarling and grumbling to a group of Cubans, and Captain O’Shea pricked up his ears.
“Raising a row about the grub, is he? ’Tis a pity he could not be sea-sick early and often.”
“Why don’t you crack him over the head with a belayin’-pin just for luck?” amiably suggested the chief engineer. “It would sweeten him up considerable.”
“I am carrying them as passengers, you blood-thirsty old buccaneer,” retorted O’Shea. “I must keep me hands off till they really mix things up. But I do not like the looks of the big nigger. He is one of your born trouble-hunters.” ”

“ God knows what the crack-brained anarchist in command will do with the ship. He has handed out a jolt to capital, all right. Of course, if you two men can concoct any scheme to win, you’re welcome to fill in a blank check for any sum you like and I’ll see that it is cashed the day we land in New York.”
Captain O’Shea clapped a strong hand on the rich man’s bony little shoulder and exclaimed, as though admonishing a foolish child:
“Tut, tut! ’Tis nonsense ye talk. We are all in the same boat, and there are women and children amongst us. ”

“ And during this time the Alsatian was steaming over the smooth sea, her bow pointing almost due south, her altered course veering farther and farther away from the transatlantic trade routes into a region of ocean mostly frequented by sailing-vessels and wandering tramp freighters. As Captain O’Shea and Johnny Kent returned to the upper hall the latter said with a great, resonant laugh:
“Breakfast has made a new man of me. I ain’t worried a mite about anything. My gun is in my pants pocket, and I’m pretty spry and sudden for an old codger. What’s the orders, Cap’n Mike?” ”

“ It was after midnight, and the Alsatian was in mid-ocean, when a few of the first-cabin passengers heard what sounded to their drowsy ears like several pistol shots. There are many noises aboard a steamship that are unfamiliar to the landsman. Excepting Captain O’Shea and Johnny Kent, such of the passengers as had been awakened paid so little heed to the sounds that they soon went to sleep again. ”

“ Likewise there would be opportunities in shipping and commerce for a comprador of his uncommon ability.
“I would honestly enjoy killing you, Charley,” said Captain O’Shea as they stood together in the wheel-house of the Whang Ho. “You are a smart lad, but ye got too gay with me, and you overplayed your game when ye slipped under the counter of this steamer in a sampan in the dark of the night and got busy with the red paint. That sort of silly jugglery was the Chinese of it, I suppose. Now, I have tried to make it plain that your life is not worth a pinch of snuff to any one of us. ”

“ Captain O'Shea, at his ease in any company or circumstances, and particularly now when he held the whip hand, asked at once:
"Are we to have the pleasure of paying our respects to his majesty?"
"You Americans are so jolly informal," smiled the minister of finance. ”

“ As for the men of the outlawed party, most of them had been invisible from the cruiser, and their number was a mere matter of conjecture. It was therefore possible for the commander to inform his officers that in accepting the surrender of Captain O’Shea he had captured all of the expedition that was worth while seizing. He had served thirty years in the Spanish navy without seeing a man slain by bullet or shell. The prospect of a fierce and bloody engagement with men who would fight like wolves failed to arouse his enthusiasm. ”

“ It is all in the day’s work with them. I am going to ask Captain O’Shea to tell me the truth.”
Her aunt objected, but with no great spirit. Her poor, tired brain was bewildered by this new turn of events. She had begun to hope to survive the37 voyage, but now she was beset by fresh alarms, fantastic and incredible. Imminent danger menaced the lawless tug. It could be felt in the buzzing excitement which pervaded the crowded decks. The only calm place was the bridge, where Captain O’Shea walked steadily to and fro, six paces to port and six paces to starboard, a ragged cigar between his teeth. ”

“ I can’t seem to beat it into your head that I’ve turned respectable. The wilder the job, the better you like it.”
“I have taken quite a fancy to this one,” and O’Shea’s eyes were dancing. “It has been haunting me, in a way, ever since I caught sight of the310 cruel brand and listened to the yarn of those Chinese gentlemen. As one seafarin’ man to another, I will do what I can to square the account of Bill Maguire.”
“It’s the first time I ever laid down on you,” sighed Johnny Kent.
“I do not hold it against ye,” warmly returned Captain O’Shea. “And maybe you ought to stand watch over Bill. ”

“ They up and jumped ship without warning.”
“I will get more men for you. Leave it to me. You have come to the right place this time, Captain O’Shea.”
Chatting amiably, the twain came to the wharf and climbed the gangway of the Whang Ho. That anxious first mate, Mr. Parkinson, pitiably afraid lest he lose his billet and be turned adrift because he had failed to prevent the desertion of the crew, brightened perceptibly at sight of Charley Tong Sin and concluded that this influential young man had been persuaded to mend the troubles. ”

“ Have ye not learned, Johnny Kent, that it is poor business to come between a man and his good intentions, even though they may be all wrong?”
Later in the day Captain O’Shea sought the state-room of the prostrate Colonel Calvo. The sea was a relentless foe and showed him no mercy. Feebly moving his hands, he turned a ghastly face to the visitor and croaked:
“I have no interes’ in my mens, in my country, in nothings at all. I am dreadful sick. I will not live to see my Cuba. She will weep for me. The ship, she will sink pretty soon? ”

“ Sooner than risk a hair of your head, Miss Forbes, I would give up meself and my ship. But a man’s duty comes first.”
“You are not to give me—to give us, one thought,” she warmly assured him, and her head was held high. “Thank you for being honest with me, Captain O’Shea. Do you wish us to stay on deck?”
Perplexed and unhappy, he answered:
“There is no safe place to stow you if the Spaniard gets within shooting range. The hold is full of cartridges and dynamite and such skittish truck.”
The steamer astern was still slowly gaining on the Fearless. ”

“ The crew of the Fearless liked not the idea of going dinnerless. When the excited patriots charged forward, there quickly rallied in front of the deck-house fourteen earnest-looking men equipped with Mauser rifles broken out of the cargo. In a wheel-house window appeared the head and shoulders of Captain O’Shea. His fist held a piece of artillery known as a Colt’s forty-five. In the background of the picture was the resourceful Johnny Kent, who was coupling the brass nozzle of the fire-hose. ”

“ Why was every man of you bowled off his feet?” exclaimed O’Shea. “’Tis not the way of your people to be afraid of scars and wounds. Ye deal out some pretty tough punishments to your criminals.”
“It is advisable that you should pay your respects to His Excellency,” evasively returned the Chinese.
The ambassador regarded Captain O’Shea with an unfriendly stare until the secretary, with many low bows, held rapid converse with the personage in his own language. ”

“ There are no revolutions popping the lid off in Central or South America, and we will sit tight and trust in my lucky star. I have a gold piece or two left in the toe of the sock where I stowed it against times like this. And we have not sunk so low that we must sign on for a lawful voyage in a ship that does not dodge every smoke she sights."
Johnny Kent crooked a finger at the barmaid, and sought consolation in another mug of bitter, while Captain O'Shea turned to a morning newspaper and ran his eye down the ship-news column to note the arrivals and departures. ”

“ We might get away with it, but it would kill a man as sick as O’Shea.”
“Why not go up-river?” suggested Major Bannister. “By means of a few words of Chinese and a great many gestures I have extracted from the village head-men the information that there is a European mission station about a hundred and fifty miles northwest of here. We can make part of the journey by boat and then hike overland. With a litter and coolies to carry it, we may be able to take Captain O’Shea through alive. It’s better than letting him die in this pest-hole.” ”

“ We shall all be murdered in our beds.”
Captain O’Shea joined them, to speak his earnest reassurances.
“You are as safe as if you were in Sunday-school, ladies. This bunch of patriots is perfectly harmless. There was an argument just before we sighted ye, and the best man won.”
“And what is this voyage of yours, captain?” asked the girl.
“Oh, we are just romancin’ around the high-seas. ’Tis nothing that would interest a lady.”
“Do you kill each other every day?”
“You mean the big nigger yonder?” and Captain O’Shea looked a trifle embarrassed. ”

“ Thereupon he lied swiftly and plausibly, the purpose hot in his heart to find a pretext that should coax the comprador to accompany him on board the Whang Ho. To a sympathetic query Captain O’Shea smoothly made answer:
“I am the kind of a man that will own up to his own mistakes. I thought I could go it alone when I ought to have been glad and thankful for the help of a man like yourself. Between us, I am not anxious to go to sea in this old tub that I have chartered from the China Navigation Company. ”

“ The Fearless, with explosives in the hold and inflammable humanity above-decks, pursued her hard-driven way through another night and turned to double Cape San Antonio and enter the storied waters of the Caribbean. Black Jiminez had failed to play the rôle expected of him and the discontent of the patriots focussed itself in no open outbreak. Captain O’Shea was puzzled at this until the mate came to him and announced that the Cubans had broken through a bulkhead in the after-hold and were stealing the ship’s stores. This accounted for their good behavior on deck. ”

“ The shipmaster enjoyed exploring the cottage while his host repaired damages and presently reappeared in a white-duck uniform, which he had worn as chief engineer of the English steamer Tarlington.
“There now, you look more like a man and less like a fat coal-heaver that has blown all his wages for rum,” said Captain O’Shea. “And will ye rummage in the lockers for a bite to eat? ”

“ A cutter was manned, and as it skimmed over the calm sea and drew near the breakers Captain O’Shea walked to the beach, Colonel Calvo accompanying him as interpreter. Van Steen followed as a rightful participant in the conference. The ladies were requested to remain within the fortification. It was not to be taken for granted that the cruiser would respect a truce. The seamen and the Cubans behind the banks of sand were savage and desperate, as was to be expected of men for whom surrender meant the firing-squad. ”