By Lincol Ross Colcord
I
“Steward!”
“Yes, sir, Cappen”
The little old Chinaman looked up from the brass threshold that he was polishing. Kneeling at the entrance to the forward cabin, with his back toward Captain Sheldon, he peered round his shoulder with a gnome-like movement, his hands pausing on the brass.
Captain Sheldon laid down his book. He pointed an accusing forefinger at the stateroom threshold, which the steward had just finished.
“That’s dirty, Wang. You haven’t half polished it. What’s the matter with you lately?”
“All light, Cappen, all light. Eye gettee old”
He shifted his pan of brick-dust, scuttled across on his knees to the stateroom threshold, and attacked the brass again. With head bent low and hands flying, he worked silently. His back disclosed nothing beyond the familiar mechanical impersonality.
Captain Sheldon watched him with narrowing eyes. He realized that he was beginning to “get down on” the old steward; yet to his mind there was justice in the feeling. Wang wasn’t so neat or careful as he used to be. He frowned as he noted the greasy collar of the Chinaman’s tunic. A dirty steward!—he had always abhorred the notion. To his strict ideas of nautical propriety, it meant the beginning of a ship’s disintegration. The time was not far distant, he saw clearly, when he would have to get rid of old Wang.
He had inherited the steward along with the ship Retriever when his father died. “Wang-ti, His Mark” the entry had stood voyage after voyage on the ship’s articles; young John Sheldon had grown up taking the venerable Chinaman for granted. He was the “old man’s” trusted servant, as much a part of the vessel as her compass or her keel. He took entire charge of the ship’s provisioning, as well as of the cabin accessories. He kept the commissary accounts, with never a penny out of the way; his prudence and honesty had saved the ship many a dollar. John often used to hear his father boast that be wouldn’t be able to go to sea without Wang-ti.
In his boyhood on shipboard, there had existed a natural intimacy between the captain’s son and the factotum of the nautical household. John’s mother was dead, he roamed the ship wild from forecastle to lazaret; and Wang had guarded his fortunes with the wise faithfulness that knows how to keep its attentions unobserved. The captain had even permitted his son to sit in the steward’s room, watching him smoke a temperate pipeful of opium after the noon dishes were done; this was the measure of his trust in the old Chinaman.
Indeed, John Sheldon, had he been disposed, might have recalled a great deal that went on in Wang’s narrow room on the port side of the forward cabin—incidents fraught with deep importance to boyhood. The room was a place of retreat, a zone of freedom. It made little difference whether Wang were there or not, the two understood each other, conversed only in monosyllables, and the Chinaman apparently took no interest in what the boy did. In return, the boy throughout this period never so much as made an inquiry into Wang’s life; that matter, too, was taken for granted. Many an afternoon he would lie for hours on the clean, hard bed, his head buried in a book, while the steward sat beside him on a three-legged wooden stool, sewing or figuring his accounts, neither of them speaking a word or glancing at the other. The click of the stone as the Chinaman mixed his ink, the rustle of the pages, and the faint creak of the wooden finish in the cabin, would mingle with the fainter sounds aloft and along decks as the vessel slipped quietly through the water.
But this was long ago, before life had opened, before days of responsibility and authority had overlaid youthful sentiment with a hard veneer of efficiency. The door of that room had closed on John Sheldon for the last time when he left the ship in New York, a boy of thirteen, to spend a few years at home in school; he was not to share another hour with Wang until the final hour. When next he joined the Retriever’s company, it was in the capacity of a rousing young second mate of seventeen, broad shouldered and full of confidence, believing that his place in life depended on strength and self-assertion. He picked quarrels with the crew largely for the sake of fighting; he was aggressive and overbearing, as befitted the type of commanding officer that appealed to his imagination. In him, real ability was combined with a physical prowess beyond the ordinary; he failed to meet the reverses that teach men of lesser combative powers a much-needed lesson, and the years conspired to develop the arbitrary side of his character. As an instance of this unfortunate tendency, he had allowed himself, after rising to the position of first mate on the Retriever, to quarrel with his father over some trifling matter of discipline; so that at the end of the voyage he had quitted the deck on which he had been brought up, and had shipped away in another vessel.
It was on the voyage immediately following this incident that his father had died suddenly at sea, half way across the Indian Ocean on the passage home. John Sheldon had arrived in New York from the West Coast almost in company with the Retriever, brought in by the mate who had taken his place. The first news he heard was that his father had been buried at sea. The ship was owned in the family; it seemed natural, in view of this stroke of destiny, that he should have her as his first command. The officers left, he took possession of the cabin and the quarterdeck that had been his father’s province for so many years; and Wang continued his duties in the forward cabin as if nothing had happened. The Chinaman had nursed Captain Sheldon when he took to his bed, had found him dying the next morning, had heard his last words, and had laid out his body for burial.
Six years had passed since then. John Sheldon was a dashing young shipmaster of twenty-seven; and now Wang was failing. No doubt about it. The dishes weren’t clean any longer; a greasy knife annoyed Captain Sheldon almost as much as an insult. Lately, he had begun to notice a heavy, musty smell as he passed by the pantry door. A dirty steward!—it wasn’t to be supported, not on his ship, at any rate.
The Chinaman finished the brasses, gathered up his pan and rags, and started for the forward cabin. Captain Sheldon laid down his book again.
“Steward, have you got a home?”
“Oh, yes, Cappen. I got two piecee house, Hong Kong side”
Wang paused in the doorway, turning half round and steadying himself as the ship lurched. His fingers left a smudge on the white paint. As if perceiving it, he wiped the place furtively with the corner of his cotton tunic, only spreading the smudge. Captain Sheldon, watching the manoeuvre, sniffed in disgust, and continued the inquiry.
“Have you got a wife?”
“She dead, seven, eight year”
“Any children?”
“Oh, I got some piecee children, maybe three, four”
“For God’s sake, don’t you know how many children you’ve got?”
“Yes, sir, Cappen. I got four piecee, all go ‘way. Maybe some dead. I no hear”
“Hm-m” The captain knit his brows ponderously, a habit he had acquired in the last few years, and fixed a severe glance on the old Chinaman. “Don’t you ever want to go home?”
“Oh, no, Cappen. Why fo’ I go home? I b’long ship side”
After waiting a moment in silence for further questions, Wang realized that the conversation was not to be concluded this time. He turned slowly and shuffled off through the forward cabin, head bent and eyes peering hard at the floor. Captain Sheldon did not see him stumble heavily against the corner of the settee.
In the protection of the pantry, Wang put down the pan of brick-dust and stood for a long time motionless, holding the dirty rags in the other hand, facing the window above the dresser. He could see the small square of light plainly, but the rest of the room was vague. His tiny, inanimate figure, in the midst of the dim clutter of the room, expressed a weary relaxation; he stood like a man lost in vacant thought. No one would have suspected the feelings behind the wizened face; Wang’s countenance, as he gazed steadfastly at the square of light, was an expressionless blank. He seemed scarcely to breathe; the spark of life seemed to have sunk low within him, to have retreated in fear or impotence. The hand holding the rags paused rigidly, as if petrified in the act of putting down its grimy burden. Had Captain Sheldon come upon him at that moment, he would have ordered him shortly to get busy, begin to do something.
All his thoughts, in the silence of the pantry, were of loyalty. That uncommunicative intimacy of the past had been fruitful to one, at least, of the parties to the contract. “Young Cappen” who as a boy had been Wang’s pride and charge, was his pride and charge still. Had not “Old Cappen” on his deathbed, whispered the final order “Keep an eye on the boy, Wang. He’s stepping high now—but the time may come when he will need you” But of these words, his father’s last utterance “Young Cappen” of course knew nothing. They remained a profound secret between Wang and the dead.
If it were true, Wang recognized in that unwavering gaze, that his days of usefulness were over, he would no longer be able to discharge this obligation. Not that his strength was less; his withered, cord-like sinews ached to scrub and polish, to keep his domain in its old efficient order. But this voyage he hadn’t been able to see what needed to be done. He had hardly dared allow his mind to formulate the explanation. But now he must face it. He was going blind.
He comprehended fully the meaning of the recent conversation in the after cabin. The pain that held him inert and motionless was half of love and half of fear. Perhaps, he tried to tell himself “Young Cappen” was now safely launched on the sea of life; perhaps he no longer had need of an old man’s service. Yet, in the same moment of thought, Wang knew that this was not the fact. The knowledge filled him with a desperate tenacity; until fate actually laid him low, he could not submit to the turn of fortune. Old and wise in life, he realized that “Young Cappen’s” hardest lessons still lay ahead of him. He must serve as long as he was able.
That night over the supper table, Captain Sheldon opened a biscuit; there was a dead cockroach in it. His knife had cut it in halves. He threw the biscuit down in disgust. Wang always made the cabin bread…. Well, why didn’t the old fool take it away? He must have seen the incident. Captain Sheldon knew that he was standing a few feet away in the pantry door. Taking up his plate, he snapped over his shoulder
“Steward!”
Wang was at his elbow in an instant. The captain thrust the biscuit into his trembling hand.
“Look at that! Take them all away, and bring some bread”
“Yes, sir, Cappen” The Chinaman mumbled incoherently, trying to cover his confusion. His innate sense of the etiquette of human relations, which even after fifty years of service had not accommodated itself to the brusque callousness of European manners, felt bitterly outraged; no way had been left him to save his face. Yet other and stronger emotions quickly submerged the insult. The biscuit plate rattled like a castanet as he set it down on the pantry dresser. As he cut into a new loaf of bread, he shook his head slowly from side to side, like an animal in pain, stopping in the midst of the operation to bend above the offending biscuit and examine it closely. He loosened the cockroach with the point of the bread knife; it fell to the plate, a dark spot on the white china. Under his breath he heaved a staccato sigh “Ah-ah-ah-ah-ah”
Captain Sheldon found himself unable to forget this trivial incident; he kept brooding over it all the evening. At breakfast next morning it came to his mind again, and followed him intermittently throughout the day—a day of petty mishaps and annoyances, one of those days when everything aboard the vessel seemed to be going wrong, when even the best efforts of officers and men to please him resulted in misfortune, and the simplest words rubbed him the wrong way. Captain Sheldon was nearing the end of a long and tedious passage, with nerves and temper badly frayed.
Coming below an hour after dinner, in hope to find a little peace, he met the heavy odour of opium smoke floating through the cabin. The door into the forward cabin had been left open. He strode out angrily; the steward’s door was open, too. Glancing into the stateroom, he saw the old Chinaman stretched on the bed, staring with glassy eyes at the ceiling, the pipe slipping from his fingers. Thin wisps of opium smoke curled up from the bowl and drifted out into the cabin.
Captain Sheldon’s patience snapped suddenly. By God, this was too much! First, bugs in the bread; and now … the lazy old swine, lying there in an opium dream, too indolent even to close the door! The ship’s discipline was going plumb to hell. His authority was becoming a joke. A dirty steward! By God, he wouldn’t stand it any longer.
“Steward! Steward! Wake up, there!”
“What, Cappen?”
By a violent effort, Wang pulled himself out of the delicious stupor and sat up on the edge of the bunk. The drug had not fully overcome him; in a long lifetime, he had never exceeded the moderate daily pipeful that would put him to sleep for only half an hour.
“Steward, I can’t permit this any longer. You’ve left your door open, and stunk up the whole cabin with the damned stuff”
“I s’pose close him, Cappen. Maybe wind swing him open”
“You didn’t close it! You don’t finish anything, now-a-days. It’s got to stop, I tell you. I can see what the trouble is. This devilish opium is getting the best of you. It’s got to stop—and the best way to stop, is to begin now…. Give me all the opium you’ve got”
“Yes, sir, Cappen”
The import of the captain’s words brought the old Chinaman to his senses with a rush. He got up unsteadily, went to his chest, and began fumbling in the lower corner. Soon he brought out a number of small square packages done up in Chinese paper.
“Cappen, what you do with him?”
Captain Sheldon snatched the packages from the steward’s hand.
“I’m going to throw it all overboard! If you’ve got any more of the stuff hidden away, you’re not to smoke it—do you understand? I won’t have such a mess in my cabin”
“Cappen, no can do!”
Wang was panting; a shrill note of anguish came into his voice. He reached out a trembling hand toward the precious drug.
“Yes, you can, and you will. It’s nothing but a nasty, degenerate habit. You’re too old for such things. It’s making you dirty and careless. Brace up, now—show that you’re good for something. You used to be the best steward in the fleet. I’m only trying to help you out. If things were to go on like this much longer, I’d have to find a new steward in Hong Kong”
Captain Sheldon, struggling to regain control of himself after the outburst of temper, stamped off through the after cabin. Wang heard him go up the companion. He sat down again on the edge of the bunk, a crumpled heap, inert and silent, his eyes dulled by a fear beyond any he had yet known. For fifty years he had smoked daily that tiny pipeful of opium. With all that life had brought him, could he summon strength for this new and terrible ordeal?
II
Fire, like the rain, falls on the just and the unjust alike, and eats up a tall ship at sea as readily as it guts a splendid castle. They were half way across from Luzon to the China coast, only a few hundred miles from Hong Kong and the end of the passage, when the blaze was discovered in the fore hold, already well under way. Quickly it became unmanageable. Through a day and a night of frantic effort the whole ship’s company fought the flames, retreating aft inch by inch while destruction followed them relentlessly under decks. In the gleam of a dawn striking across a smooth sea and lighting up the pale faces gathered on the top of the after house, it became apparent that the ship was doomed.
Daylight found them in the boats, standing off to watch the last lurid scene. The ship burned fiercely throughout the forenoon. At midday, under a blistering sun, her bows seemed suddenly to crumple and dissolve; surrounded by a cloud of steam, she settled forward with a loud hissing noise, and slowly vanished under the waters of the China Sea.
Captain Sheldon, sitting upright in the stern of the long-boat, watched the scene with set jaw and snapping eyes. It was his first disaster, the first time he had met destiny coming the other way. A fierce anger, like the fire he had just been fighting, ran in his blood. He was beside himself. It seemed inconceivable that there was no way to bring his ship back out of the deep; that the very means of authority had vanished, that he was powerless, that the event was sealed for all time. He wanted to strike out blindly, hit something, crush something.
Well he knew that if any blame attached to the matter, it rested on him alone. For some occult reason, as it now seemed, the mate a few days before had broached the subject of fire, in conversation at the supper table. Not that fire was to be expected; no one ever had heard of it with such a cargo. Why had the mate chosen that day, of all others, when the captain had lost his patience with old Wang, to talk about fire throughout the supper period, to follow him on deck with the subject in the evening? The talk had only aroused the perversity of his own opposition. The mate, waxing eloquent and imaginative, had at length succeeded in frightening himself; had wanted to take off the fore hatch in the dog watch, just to look into the hold. Had he done so then, the fire would probably have been discovered in season to overcome it. But Captain Sheldon, sarcastic and bristling with arbitrariness, had flatly commanded him to leave the fore hatch alone.
Well, no use in crying over spilt milk. The ship was gone.
“Give way!” he shouted across the water to the mate’s boat “Keep along with me. We’ll strike in for the coast, and follow it down”
All the afternoon they rowed silently in the broiling heat and mirror-like calm. The coast of China came in sight, a range of high blue-grey mountains far inland. Nearer at hand, a group of outlying islands appeared on the horizon. Captain Sheldon swung his course to the westward, heading directly into the blinding sun that by this time had sunk low in the western sky.
In the extreme bow of the longboat sat the old steward, gazing straight ahead with unseeing eyes. His head was uncovered; the sun beat down on him without effect. He made no movement, uttered no sound. Alone and helpless, he suffered the throes of the most desperate struggle that human consciousness affords—the struggle of the will against the call of a body habituated to opium.
In the latter part of the afternoon they sighted a big Chinese junk, close inshore against the islands. A light breeze had begun to ruffle the water. On the impulse of the moment, Captain Sheldon decided to board the junk and have himself carried to Hong Kong under sail. The idea caught him and suited his fancy; he couldn’t bear to think of arriving in port in open boats. Instructions were shouted to the mate’s boat, the head of the longboat was again swung around, and a course was laid to intercept the brown-sailed native craft under the lee of the land.
All this passed unnoticed by the silent figure in the bow, wandering blindly through a grim vale of endeavour. As time went on, however, Wang seemed to realize that a change had taken place in the plan of their progress. The sun no longer shone full in his face. He glanced up dully, caught a vague sight of the junk, now close aboard and standing, to his veiled eyes, like a dark blot on the clear rim of the horizon; then pulled himself hastily together and made a low inquiry of the man at the bow oar. The answer seemed to galvanize his tortured body into action. He began to scramble aft under the moving oars.
“Here, what’s the trouble forward?” Captain Sheldon tried to make out the cause of the commotion.
“Wang wants to come aft, sir”
“What for? Shove him into the bottom of the boat”
“He says he must see you, sir”
“Oh, the devil … Well, let him come. He needn’t hold up the boat for that”
Many hands helped the old Chinaman aft.
Muttering rapidly to himself, he sank into a place beside the captain.
“What’s that you say?” demanded Captain Sheldon “What are you trying to hatch up now?”
Wang made a vague beckoning gesture in the captain’s face. Behind all that floated wildly through his mind, stood the fixed thought that he must not shame “Young Cappen” by openly imparting information.
“Are you sick or crazy?” demanded Captain Sheldon again, bending above the maundering old man.
“Cappen, junk he no good!” whispered Wang feverishly “No can do, Cappen! Must go ‘way, chop-chop. Night come soon. Maybe no see”
Captain Sheldon gave a loud laugh. He spoke for all to hear.
“What damned nonsense have you got into your head now?”
“No, sir, Cappen. Look-see!” Wang grasped the other’s arm with frantic strength, pulling him down “You no savvy him, Cappen. Killee quick, no good! You no wanchee him. Go Hong Kong side, chop-chop. Night come, maybe can do. Cappen, I savvy plenty what for!”
“Oh, shut up, you raving old idiot!” cried Captain Sheldon, roughly.
At this inopportune moment the mate, ranging alongside in his boat, offered a suggestion. They were closing in with the junk now; a row of yellow faces peered over the side toward them, watching with narrow bright eyes every movement of the approaching boats.
“Captain Sheldon, I don’t like the looks of that crowd” said the mate nervously “Hadn’t we better sheer off, sir?”
“No, certainly not!” shouted the angry captain. “I suppose I’m still in charge here, even if the ship is gone. Do you think I haven’t any judgment? By God, between a timid mate and a crazy steward…. Give way, boys, there’s nothing to be afraid of!”
The breeze had by this time died away, the junk was scarcely moving. A moment later their oars rattled against the side. Captain Sheldon scrambled aboard. He gave a rapid glance along the low maindeck, but saw nothing to arouse his suspicion. A man, evidently the captain of the craft, was advancing toward him; the crew were crowding around to overhear the conversation. But all this was only natural. An ordinary trading junk, of course; heaven alone knew what all these native craft really were doing. After a moment’s scrutiny, he dismissed from his mind any thought that may secretly have been aroused by Wang’s warning and the mate’s unfortunate remark.
“You losee ship—ha?” The captain of the junk accosted him in good pidgin English.
“Yes—she burned this morning. I want you to take me to Hong Kong”
Within half an hour the bargain had been struck, and they were comfortably established on the new deck. The breeze had freshened, the junk’s head had been put about, the two ship’s boats trailed astern in single file at the end of a long line. The Retriever’s company had partaken of a Chinese supper; many of them were spending the last hour of daylight in examining the queer craft, passing remarks on her strange nautical points, while the native crew watched their movements with furtive gaze.
Captain Sheldon paced to and fro on the high poop deck, chewing the end of a cigar and ruminating on the unaccountable turns of fortune. The adventure of boarding the junk had for a time broken the savage current of his thoughts; but now, with the affair settled and night closing in, the mood of anger and bitterness claimed him again with redoubled intensity.
The mate ranged up beside him with a friendly air. He felt the need of a reconciliation.
“You’ll be interested to hear, Captain, that old Wang has found a pipeful of opium”
“The devil you say! I wondered where the old rascal had disappeared to. How do you know?”
“He’s been hanging around the Chinese crew, sir, ever since we came aboard. I went through their quarters down below forward a while ago, and there he lay in one of their bunks, dead to the world, with the pipe across his chest”
“The useless old sot!” exclaimed Captain Sheldon “I had made up my mind to get rid of him this time, anyway. You know he has been in the family, so to speak. But I don’t like the idea of his going off with his native gang. Combined with the opium business, it looks suspicious. You’d better keep an eye on him. He’s got a grudge against me, you know, since I took away his stuff”
“I guess they’ll all bear watching, sir”
“Oh, nonsense! There isn’t the slightest cause for alarm. It’s perfectly evident that this craft is a peaceful trader, and we could handle the whole gang of ‘em if they began to make trouble. They won’t, though, never fear; a Chinaman is too big a coward. This captain seems to be quite an intelligent fellow; I’ve just been having a yarn with him. He has given up his room to me; well, not much of a room, nothing but a bunk and a door, but such as it is, it’s all he has. Funny quarters they have down below, like a labyrinth of passages, all leading nowhere.
The mate laughed. “Funny enough forward, too; a damned stinking hole, if you ask me, sir”
While they were talking on the poop, Wang appeared on deck forward, went to the weather rail and sniffed a deep breath of the land breeze. He had had an hour’s opium sleep—an hour of heaven, an hour of life again. Now he could command his faculties. Blindness was no hindrance to work in the dark; was even an advantage, since for many months now he had been accustomed to feeling and groping his way. Fate had been good to him, at the last. Now he possessed the strength to do what he would have to do.
The familiar voices of the mate and the captain came to his ears, but he did not glance in their direction. The least move on his part to give information would have been his last. He had heard enough already to know that the death of the whole ship’s company that night was being actively planned, for the sake of the boats and the mysterious tin box that Captain Sheldon carried.
III
In spite of physical exhaustion, it was nearly midnight before Captain Sheldon left the deck and crawled into the narrow den under the poop-deck that had been given up to him by the Chinese captain. He could not get to sleep for a long while. He was taking his loss very hard; that inflexible, proud disposition would almost have met death sooner than admit an error. At length, however, he fell into a light and uneasy slumber.
He was awakened some time later by a light touch on the arm—a touch that started him from sleep without alarming him into action. A voice whispered softly in his ear
“Cappen! Cappen! This b’long Wang. No makee speakee” A firm hand was laid over his mouth.
In the pitchy darkness of the close room, Captain Sheldon could see absolutely nothing. Listening intently, he heard stealthy movements outside the door. On deck there was utter silence. He became aware instinctively that the junk was no longer moving, that the wind had gone.
He lay perfectly still. The suddenness of the occasion had brought an unaccountable conflict of impulses and emotions. He felt that an alarming crisis was in the air. Along with this feeling came another, strange enough at such a time—a sense of confidence in the old steward. He had immediately recognized the voice in his ear. Why hadn’t he jumped out of bed? Why wasn’t he lying there in momentary expectation of a knife in the ribs—why didn’t he throw himself aside to avoid it? He could not understand his own immobility; yet he remained quiet. Something in the old Chinaman’s whisper held him in its command. Pride had succumbed to intrinsic authority.
The rapid whisper began again, panting and insistent.
“Cappen, you come now. Mus’ come quick. I savvy how can do. Maybe got time. S’pose stay here, finishee chop-chop” The hand was removed from his mouth, as if conscious that discretion had sufficiently been imposed.
“What has happened, Wang?” whispered the agitated captain.
“Makee killee, all samee I know”
“Where’s the mate? Where’s the crew?”
“All go, Cappen” Again the hand came over his mouth “You come quick. Bym’by, no can do”
Captain Sheldon flung the steward’s arm aside and sat up wildly. “Good God, let me go, Wang! I must go out….”
“Cappen, make no bobbery”
“Where’s my revolver?” The captain was hunting distractedly through the bed.
“He go, too” The whisper took on a despairing tone. “Cappen, s’pose you gotee match?”
“Yes”
“Makee one light”
Captain Sheldon found the box and struck a match. The tiny illumination filled the narrow cabin. As the flame brightened, Wang rolled over on the floor, disclosing one hand held against his left breast, a hand holding a bloody wad of tunic against a hidden wound. A sop of blood on the floor marked the spot where he had been lying.
The match burned out. Again came the painful whisper.
“Maybe can do now. Bym’by, no can do”
“My God, Wang! You’re wounded! How can we get out? I’ll carry you”
“No, sir, Cappen. I savvy way. You feelee here, Cappen”
The steward was already fumbling with his free hand at a ringbolt in the floor. He guided the captain’s arm to it. Captain Sheldon grasped the ringbolt, pulled up a trap-door that seemed to lead into the hold. Letting himself over the edge, his feet found a deck not far below. He stood upright in the opening, and lifted Wang bodily to the lower level. The old Chinaman struggled to be put down.
“Wang, keep still—let me carry you”
“No, sir, Cappen. Walkee-walkee, can do. You no savvy way”
Stooping and keeping an arm half around him, Captain Sheldon followed Wang through a shallow lazaret. It led forward into the open hold. They passed beneath a hatch, where Wang drew aside in the deeper shadow, listening. Not a sound came from overhead. Again they stole forward. The wounded man held on indomitably, bearing his pain in a silence that seemed almost supernatural, as if unknown to the other he had been rendered invulnerable by a magic spell. Beyond the hatch they entered a narrow passage-way, and came out suddenly into the junk’s forecastle, the quarters of the Chinese crew. A ladder led to another open hatch in the deck above.
As they reached the foot of the ladder, a fearful yelling suddenly broke out toward the stern, a sound of savage anger. Naked feet pattered on the deck overhead going aft. Wang grasped the captain’s arm.
“S’pose breakee in door, no findee. One minute have got! Boat stand off, waitee! Go quickee, Cappen, jump ovelboa’!”
Captain Sheldon heard him with a shock of incredulity. “The boats are standing off? The crew haven’t been killed?”
“No, sir, Cappen. All hand savee! You go now”
He felt the old man sag in his arms.
“Wang, I can’t leave you here!”
“Why for, Cappen? Wang no good. Quickee! Makee jump!”
The voice broke; the frail body crumpled and slipped to the floor.
Gathering all his strength, Captain Sheldon slung the old steward’s unconscious form over his shoulder and swarmed up the ladder. As he gained the deck, a tall figure dashed between him and the rail; other figures were racing through the waist of the junk. An angry chatter broke out at the foot of the ladder up which he had just come.
Holding Wang to one side, he struck out heavily at the man who blocked his path, felling him to the deck. Darkness and surprise saved the day for him; their quarry had appeared like a whirlwind in their very midst. The next instant Captain Sheldon had gained the rail, and jumped clear of the junk’s side. The two bodies made a loud splash that echoed through the calmness of the night. As he came to the surface, desperately striking away from the junk and trying to keep Wang’s head above water, he heard a shout a little distance off in the darkness, and the rattle of oars as the boats sprang into action.
IV
The longboat was the first to reach him. They pulled him in with his burden still in his arms. The mate, appearing beside them in the other boat, gave vent to his anxiety.
“Good God, Captain Sheldon, I thought you were done for! Why didn’t you come, sir? Wang gave me your orders; we hauled up the boats very quietly as you said, and got into them, while he kept the Chinamen busy forward with talk. He said you would come, sir; but we were discovered, and I had to sheer off. I was afraid they’d sink the boats, sir, before we could do anything. I didn’t know what weapons they had. I was just planning an attack, sir. Then I thought I saw them stab old Wang….”
“I’ve got Wang” said Captain Sheldon solemnly “They did stab him. Those weren’t my orders—they were his. And he’s the only one to pay the price!” The young captain was beginning to face a harder lesson than the mere loss of a vessel.
“I don’t understand, sir. Wasn’t it the right thing to do?” The mate was completely puzzled by this new development.
“Yes, yes, it was the right thing to do!” cried Captain Sheldon impatiently “He was right, and I was wrong. Now leave me alone”
He bent above the shrunken form of the old steward. Wang’s eyelids fluttered; he was slowly regaining consciousness.
“Wang, why didn’t you come and tell me, in time to save all this?”
The Chinaman’s eyes regarded him with a stare of mingled surprise and affection, a stare that somehow suggested a wise and quiet amusement.
“I tellee you, Cappen. You no savvy. S’pose no savvy, no can do. Mus’ wait, makee savvy.”
It was a terrible condemnation. Captain Sheldon ground his teeth at the bitter truth of it. His own obstinacy, his own evil! Nothing that Wang could have said, before the thing had happened, would possibly have changed his mind. He had committed himself to error. The old servant had been forced to save them single-handed, to retrieve his master’s failure with his own life.
Wang was muttering, as he neared the end. He was about to join “Old Cappen” With a good report and a clean record. No one could have known the depth of the calm that had come to that aged heart. Even the awful pain of the wound had stopped, under the shock of the cool water. He seemed to be drifting off into an eternal opium dream.
“What is it, Wang? Can I do anything for you?”
“No, sir, Cappen. Bym’by, finishee”
He lay quiet for a moment, then plucked at the other’s sleeve.
“Old Cappen say, boy step high. Look out! Maybe more-better stop, look-see”
Captain Sheldon buried his face in his hand. Had the words come with lesser force, they would have infuriated him; had the advice been given as advice, it would have defeated its own ends. But now it came with the authority of death, sealed with the final service it came with the meaning of life, and could not be denied.
