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'A hero by the toll of twenty-four deaths. Down off the river Plate I didn't realize the horror of all this. Off St.-Louis I did, and advised you. You withstood, to be a hero. Well, I'm sorry for you, that's all. "A big rat jumped from the wheel-box at this moment, climbed my clothing, and had reached my chest before I knocked it off with my fist.
Then the pictures began to thicken fast: the derelict bark "Lady Letty" rolling to her scuppers, abandoned and lonely; the "boy" in the wheel-box; Kitchell wrenching open the desk in the captain's stateroom; Captain Sternersen buried at sea, his false teeth upside down; the black fury of the squall, and Moran at the wheel; Moran lying at full length on the deck, getting the altitude of a star; Magdalena Bay; the shark-fishing; the mysterious lifting and shuddering of the schooner; the beach-combers' junk, with its staring red eyes; Hoang, naked to the waist, gleaming with sweat and whale-oil; the ambergris; the race to beach the sinking schooner; the never-to-be-forgotten night when he and Moran had camped together on the beach; Hoang taken prisoner, and the hideous filing of his teeth; the beach-combers, silent and watchful behind their sand breastworks; the Chinaman he had killed twitching and hic-coughing at his feet; Moran turned Berserker, bursting down upon him through a haze of smoke; Charlie dying in the hammock aboard the schooner, ordering his funeral with its "four-piecee horse"; Coronado; the incongruous scene in the ballroom; and, last of all, Josie Herrick in white duck and kid shoes, giving her hand to Moran in her boots and belt, hatless as ever, her sleeves rolled up to above the elbows, her white, strong arm extended, her ruddy face, and pale, milk-blue eyes gravely observant, her heavy braids, yellow as ripening rye, hanging over her shoulder and breast.
The crew were snug up under the weather rail and hanging on no mistake either about the way they were hanging on. Every once in awhile one of us would poke his head up to see what they were doing to windward of us. Mr. Duncan, who had come aboard just before we left the dock, was trying to sit on the weather bitt near the wheel-box. He had a line around his waist, too.
He was bland and terrible; and they hated him after their several manners, some with dull tear, one or two and Slade among them with a ferocity that moved them like physical nausea. He had left his coat on the wheel-box to go to his work, and was manifestly unarmed.
Then we'll know where we're at. How's the kid?" "She's all right," answered Wilbur, before he could collect his thoughts. But the Captain thought he had reference to the "Bertha." "I mean the kid we found in the wheel-box. He doesn't count in our salvage. The bark's been abandoned as plain as paint. If I thought he stood in our way," and Kitchell's jaw grew salient.
I paid out some sheet from the bitt by the wheel-box, unbuttoned the after stays'l tack, jumped forward and loosed up halyards till her kites dropped limp. "Down with your balloon there and at the wheel there, jibe her over. Watch out for that fellow astern he's pretty handy to our boat. Watch out in boat and dory!" The last warning was a roar.
Cramped into the narrow space of the wheel-box like a terrified hare in a blind burrow was the figure of a young boy. So firmly was he wedged into the corner that Kitchell had to kick down the box before he could be reached. The boy spoke no word. Stupefied with the gas, he watched them with vacant eyes. Wilbur put a hand under the lad's arm and got him to his feet.
Watch out now ready let go your anchor!" Rattle whizz whir-r-r splash! clink and the Johnnie Duncan of Gloucester was safe to her mooring. And not till then did our skipper, ten hours to the wheel, unclinch his grip, hook the becket to a spoke, slat his sou'wester on the wheel-box and ease his mind. "Thank the Lord, there's a jeesly blow behind us.
"If you want to say anything, say it across the wheel-box. You've been dreaming." Even as I spoke, the little beggar caught at my sleeve with one hand; and, pointing across to the log-reel with the other, screamed: "He's coming! He's coming " At this instant, the Second Mate came running aft, singing out to know what was the matter.
I liked to hear him sing that, as, dancing a one-footed jig-step by the wheel-box, he bumped it out: "Oh, the 'Liza Jane with a blue foremast And a load of hay came drifting past. Her skipper stood aft and he said, 'How do? We're the 'Liza Jane and who be you? He stood by the wheel and he says, 'How do? We're from Bangor, Maine from where be you?
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