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Updated: June 27, 2025
The poop was deserted, save for two helmsmen in streaming oilskins under the half-shelter of the open wheel-house. I nodded good morning to them. One was Tom Spink, the elderly but keen and dependable English sailor.
The men foregathered curiously about him as he scanned the vessel. He ran his eyes over the tub from stem to poop. She stood out with absolute distinctness in the glaring light. He could see her high prow, the swinging buffers along her side, the wide-mouthed ventilators. He could even make out her name in rusty letters under the wheel-house.
He could not enjoy his pleasant position at the wheel, and he put the steamer about, heading her toward Port Rock. "Lawry," said Ben, returning to the wheel-house, "I want you to tell me what you are going to do. I'm older than you, and I have seen more steamboating than you have. I think it's my right to be captain of this boat." "I don't think so." "I don't want to jaw any more about it."
The man of gold went aft with the coin, which was contained in two bags. "I suppose I can go home with you can't I, Lawry?" asked Ben, as the little captain started for the wheel-house. Lawry could not refuse this request, though his brother was evidently a little excited by the liquor he had drank.
Through the ghost-white mist of morning he saw the rows of empty chairs, and lights burning dully in the wheel-house. Asian monsoon and the drifting warmth of the Japan current had brought an early spring to the Alexander Archipelago, and May had stolen much of the flowering softness of June. But the dawns of these days were chilly and gray.
Meantime the southeaster, dead ahead and blowing harder every minute, was sending its seas further and further aft. He left his wet berth on the deck, reeled, or rather was flung, to the stern of the vessel, lodged himself between the little wheel-house and the taffrail, and watched a scene in consonance with his feelings.
The oncoming tug was barely twice its length from the scow when Boyd saw Big George cease his violent antics and level a revolver directly at the wheel-house of the opposing craft. Two puffs of smoke issued from weapon, then out from the glass-encased structure the steersman plunged, scrambled down the deck and into the shelter of the house.
The dinghy, which was lashed inboard behind the wheel-house, was blown bodily away to leeward, the ropes holding it parting as if they had been pack-thread, heavy squalls, accompanied with heavy rain all the time beating on us like hail, and bursting over the ship in rapid succession; but the old barquey bravely stood it, bending to the blast when it came, and then buoyantly rising the next moment and breasting it like the good sea-boat she was.
We both of us looked at the saloon clock on the instant, sure, an' saw the toime, sor." "That is the last mark on the chart, then?" said the old skipper meaningly, pencil and compass in hand, and still bending over the tell- tale track map spread out on the wheel-house table. "Since that, nobody knows how we've drifted!"
Behind the wheel-house was an observation room, as it would be called in the States, running nearly the whole length of the bridge, and fronted with thick plate glass. They went in, and Oscarovitch turned the pointer to half-speed.
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