THE LINER “ALSATIAN”
Fifteen years ago the crack Atlantic liners were no larger than ten thousand tons. Some of them are still in service, safe and comfortable ships, quite fast enough for the traveller who is not bitten with speed madness. When the Alsatian of the International Line was new she attracted as much attention as one of the monsters of to-day with its length of almost a fifth of a mile and horse-power to stagger the imagination.
As she rode at anchor in the Mersey on a certain sailing day in March, spick-and-span with fresh paint, brasswork sparkling in the sunshine, flags snapping in the breeze, the Alsatian was a handsome picture to greet the passengers who arrived in the special train from London and were transferred on board in the paddle-wheel tender. There were fewer than a hundred of them in the first cabin, for the season of the year was between high tides of travel east and west.
It was a tradition of the International Line that its steamers should sail precisely on the stroke of the hour appointed. More than five minutes’ delay was viewed by the port superintendents in Liverpool and New York as a nautical crime. Therefore when noon came and there was none of the activity of departure, the passengers were curious. A loquacious young man, of the noisy breed which makes the English say unkind things about American tourists, ordered another cocktail of the smoking-room steward and pettishly exclaimed:
“This right-on-the-minute business is all a bluff. The gangway hasn’t been hoisted and the tender is still alongside. This ship is nowhere near ready to start. Slow country—slow people, these Britishers. We can show ’em a few things, bet your life.”
A nervous, thin-faced gentleman who had been fidgeting between the deck and the smoking-room door chimed in to say:
“Confound it, I hate to be behind time! I can’t stand it! What’s the matter with this steamer? Why don’t the officers tell us something?”
Several passengers listened deferentially to this jerky protest. The speaker was immensely, notoriously rich, and, although dyspepsia had played hob with his internal workings, and his temper was chronically on edge, he was an enviable personage in the eyes of many American citizens. Whether he toiled or loafed, his millions were working night and day to earn more millions for him. It could make no essential difference under heaven at what hour the Alsatian should carry him out of Liverpool, for he could not be happy anywhere; but the delay made him acutely miserable.
An old man with kindly, scrutinizing eyes laid down his cigar to comment:
“My dear sir, I crossed the ocean in a sailing-packet some forty-odd years ago, and we anchored in the channel two weeks waiting for a fair wind, and were fifty-seven days to Sandy Hook.”
“Times have changed, thank God!” snapped the great Jenkins P. Chase, of the bankrupt digestion.
“And changed not altogether for the better when it comes to all this fuss and clatter to get somewhere else in a hurry, my friend. It is a national disease,” was the smiling, tolerant reply.
Jenkins P. Chase glanced at his watch, muttered something, and darted on deck as if a bee had stung him.
“Bet you the drinks he’s gone to find the captain and blow him up,” admiringly cried the loquacious young man. “If Jenkins P. Chase gets his dander up he’s liable to buy the ship and the whole blamed line and run it to suit himself. He is the original live-wire. Most wonderful man in the little old United States.”
In a rather secluded corner of the smoking-room sat two passengers who had taken no part in the general conversation. One might have suspected that all this fuss over a belated sailing caused them mild amusement. The younger was of a cast of features unmistakably Irish, with the combination of pugnacity and humor so often discernible in men of that blood.
His companion was ruddy and big-bodied, his hair and mustache well frosted by time. Said the latter, after due reflection:
“Hurry has killed a whole lot of people, Cap’n Mike. What’s the matter with these peevish gents, anyhow? The company is givin’ them their board and they’re as comfortable as lords. I don’t care if the steamer lays in port a week.”
“That Jenkins P. Chase is a horrible example, Johnny,” quoth Captain Michael O’Shea. “’Tis his habit to go flyin’ about, and there is no rest for him anywhere. If ye accumulate too much money, you may get that way yourself.”
“I ain’t got a symptom,” said improvident old Johnny Kent. “I’ve learned, for one thing, that it’s poor business to try to hurry the sea. A ship must bide her time and sail when she’s ready.”
“But what ails this one, I wonder?” queried Captain O’Shea. “I mistrust something is wrong. The skipper of her, and a grand man he is, with his gold buttons and all, he went below a while ago, Johnny, and he has not come back.”
They strolled outside, and being seafaring men of wide experience, found significance in trifles which would have meant little or nothing to a landsman. This was no ordinary delay. The whole complex organization of the liner was disturbed.
“There is trouble amongst the crew,” observed O’Shea. Johnny Kent halted near an engine-room skylight and cocked his head to listen.
“The trouble is in this department,” said he.
Presently a tug-boat hastily cast off from the nearest quay and churned her way out to the Alsatian. A dozen Liverpool policemen scrambled aboard the liner and vanished between-decks. From the depths below the water-line arose a hubbub of oaths and shouts.
A few minutes later two policemen reappeared dragging between them to the gangway a shock-headed, muscular fellow in blue dungarees. Although he made no resistance, they handled him roughly and he was expeditiously handcuffed to a stanchion on the deck of the tug. Immediately thereafter the sounds of disturbance down below increased in violence, and swarming up ladders and through passageways came a sooty, greasy crowd of stokers, trimmers, and coal-passers.
Scrambling on board the tug, and taking her by storm, they voiced their opinions of the Alsatian and the International Line in language which caused the feminine passengers to clap their hands to their ears and flee from the rail.
A junior officer with whom Captain O’Shea had scraped acquaintance halted to explain, in passing:
“The blackguards went on strike for more pay and recognition of their union. The company patched up the trouble yesterday, but the beggars were stirred up again this morning by the chap the bobbies put the irons on. He persuaded them to kick up a rumpus just before sailing-time.”
“If they have signed articles, ’tis more like a mutiny than a strike,” observed O’Shea.
“They know that right enough,” said the officer, “but they don’t seem to care whether they are jugged for it or not. It’s an incident of the general labor trouble in this port, I presume. The longshoremen’s strike is not settled yet, you know.”
“And what will ye do for a fire-room gang?” O’Shea asked him. “There was near a hundred and fifty of them that quit just now.”
“Hanged if I know,” sighed the officer as he walked away.
The tug was black with the mob of strikers, who were packed wherever they could find standing-room. The police could do nothing with them, and the distracted skipper of the tug decided to make for a quay and get rid of his riotous cargo. The passengers of the Alsatian surmised that sailing-day might be indefinitely postponed and they bombarded the officers with excited demands for information. Captain O’Shea and Johnny Kent, philosophers of sorts, viewed the situation with good-natured composure, and were more interested in the summons to the dining-saloon for luncheon than in the strike of the fire-room gang.
“As long as I get three square meals per day and a dry bunk I ain’t especially uneasy about anything,” remarked Johnny Kent as he fondly scanned the elaborate menu card.
“Same here,” replied O’Shea. “But that jumpy gentleman, Jenkins P. Chase, must be throwing assorted fits by this time.”
Facing them across the table was a blond, spectacled man with a small, pointed beard, his appearance notably studious and precise. Although he spoke English with cultivated ease and fluency, the ear detected certain shades and intonations to indicate that he was a German by birth. He was affable to his neighbors at table and courteous to the steward who waited on him. Garrulous, sociable Johnny Kent found him companionable, and ventured to inquire:
“Your first trip to America? Business or pleasure?”
“Both. I shall interest myself in studying scientific education in the United States. I am a chemist by profession, and also a lecturer on the subject before the classes of a university. Yes, it is my first voyage to your wonderful country. Tell me, please, have you met the famous Professor Crittenden, of Baltimore?”
Johnny Kent was about to proclaim that as a seafaring man he was not in touch with scientists, but O’Shea, to prevent any such disclosure, kicked him on the shin as a reminder that he was to eschew personalities. It was not discreet to advertise themselves and their affairs in the mixed company of the Atlantic liner. O’Shea was aware that if Johnny Kent should once begin yarning about his adventures it would be like pulling the cork from an overturned jug.
The marine engineer blushed guiltily, bent over to rub his bruised shin, and briefly assured the blond scientist that he had not been lucky enough to meet the distinguished Professor Crittenden, of Baltimore.
“I was only last night reading his masterly paper on ‘The Action of Diazobenzene Sulphonic Acid on Thymine, Uracil, and Cytosine,’” politely returned the other. “It is as brilliant as his discussion of imidechlorides.”
Johnny Kent threw up an arm as if to ward off a blow.
“If one of those words had hit me plumb and square, it would have jolted me out of my chair!” he exclaimed. “I could feel the wind of ’em.”
The studious stranger smiled and apologized for talking shop.
“Those strikers—will the company be able to fill their places?” said he, addressing O’Shea.
“Perhaps a crew can be scraped up ashore. If not, we will have to shift to another steamer. Firemen are an ugly, cross-tempered lot to handle, so I am told.”
“Have you been much on the ocean? Do you know much about ships?”
“I have made a voyage or two as a passenger,” O’Shea assured him. “’Tis a hard life in the stoke-hole of a big steamer, I imagine.”
The scientist returned emphatically:
“I have no sympathy with them; none whatever. Lacking intelligence, fitness, they must labor for those who have earned or won the right to rule them.”
“’Tis your opinion that might makes right?” spoke up O’Shea.
“Always, everywhere!” declared the scientist. “The mind is the man. The founders of your government proclaimed the fallacy that all men are equal, but your strong men know better, and they ride and exploit your masses.”
“It’s the best country God ever made,” cried Johnny Kent with some heat.
“I beg your pardon”; and the chemist bowed. “It was a rudeness for me to speak so.”
As they left the table he gave them his card with a touch of formality, and they discovered that his name was Professor Ernst Wilhelm Vonderholtz.
Three hours later the passengers were notified that the Alsatian would be ready to sail next morning. It was learned that the company had been able to recruit an unexpectedly large number of unemployed firemen among the boarding-houses and taverns of the Liverpool water-front. They were willing to take the places of the strikers, and it was hoped that the liner could be sent to sea with a fairly complete complement of men. Apparently the strikers had been poorly advised and led, for they were beaten with no great inconvenience to the management of the company.
As soon as the Alsatian had lifted anchor and was steaming out of the Mersey the passengers ceased grumbling, and settled into the comfortable, somnolent routine of a modern transatlantic voyage. A party of poker-players mobilized in the smoking-room. The ladies reclined all in a row in their steamer-chairs on the lee side of the deck, like so many shawl-wrapped mummies. The spoiled American child whanged the life out of the long-suffering piano in the music-room. A few conscientious persons undertook to walk so many miles around the deck each day. There was much random conversation, a spice of flirtation, and a vast deal of eating and sleeping. That hectoring gentleman Jenkins P. Chase spent most of the time in his own rooms, where he was ministered to by his physician, his secretary, and his valet.
Captain O’Shea and Johnny Kent enjoyed the luxury of such a voyage as this. There was no responsibility to burden them on the bridge or in the engine-room. No one guessed that they were uncommonly capable mariners, accustomed to command. Professor Ernst Wilhelm Vonderholtz seemed to find their company congenial, and tried to make them talk about themselves. His curiosity was politely dissembled, but O’Shea took note of it and built up an elaborate fiction to the effect that he was a pavement contractor in New York with friends at Tammany Hall, while Johnny Kent found genuine satisfaction in posing as a retired farmer from the State of Maine. It occurred to O’Shea to remark to his comrade as they were undressing in their room on the second night at sea:
“The chemical professor suspects we are not what we seem. And he is anxious to fathom us.”
“Oh, pooh! He’s one of them high and lofty thinkers that wouldn’t bother his head about ignorant, every-day cusses like us,” sleepily replied Johnny Kent as he kicked off his shoes.
“You fool yourself,” and O’Shea spoke with decision. “He is full of big words and things that I do not pretend to understand at all, but he is not wrapped up in them entirely, like most of the professors and such. There is a pair of keen eyes behind those gold-rimmed spectacles of his, Johnny, and he is not missing anything that goes on.”
“I take notice that he ain’t overlookin’ that handsome school-teacher that’s been studyin’ abroad for a year. His eyes are sharp enough to sight her whenever she comes on deck. And she ain’t hostile to him, either.”
“I grant ye that, you sentimental old pirate,” said O’Shea, “but I am not a match-maker, and ’tis no concern of mine. What I am wondering is whether the man is really a university professor bent on ‘investigating the scientific education of the United States.’”
“You’re welcome to sit up and hatch mysteries by yourself,” grumbled the other. “I want to go to sleep. What’s the clew to all this, Cap’n Mike? What makes you so darned suspicious?”
“’Tis no more than a hunch, Johnny. I’m Irish, and my people feel things in the air. We don’t have to be told. This Professor Ernst Wilhelm Vonderholtz does not ring true. There is a flaw in him somewhere.”
“Well, we’re sort of travellers in disguise ourselves, ain’t we, Cap’n Mike? I feel plumb full of false pretences. The pot calls the kettle black. How about that?”
“’Tis our own business,” snapped O’Shea.
“So is his,” briefly concluded Johnny Kent as he crawled into the bunk. No more than five minutes later he was snoring with the rhythm and volume of a whistling buoy in a swinging sea. O’Shea lay awake for some time, trying to fit his uneasy surmises together, or to toss them aside as so much rubbish. He had not heard the banshee cry, but a vague conjecture had fastened itself in his mind that something was fated to go wrong with this voyage of the Alsatian. And without tangible cause or reason, he found this foreboding interwoven with the presence on board of the affable, mild-mannered, studious Professor Ernst Wilhelm Vonderholtz.
Sailormen are notably superstitious, and O’Shea had been schooled to beware of cross-eyed Finns in the forecastle and black cats in the cabin. But surely no tradition of the sea held it an ill omen to have on board a blond scientist with gold-rimmed spectacles and a well-cut beard who was seeking information among the technical schools and universities of the United States.
“He has it in his head that Johnny Kent and I are seafarin’ men by trade, and he wants to make sure of it for some reason of his own,” reflected O’Shea. “It has strained me imagination to lie to him and get away with it. As for Johnny, he would rather talk farming than anything else in the world, so he will pass for a genuine hayseed in any company.”
They were deprived of the pleasant society of Professor Vonderholtz next day, for he boldly monopolized the school-teacher, Miss Jenness, who seemed not in the least bored by his assiduous attentions. Elderly ladies watched them with open interest, and diagnosed it as one of those swift and absorbing steamship romances.
For three days out of Liverpool the Alsatian moved uneventfully over the face of the waters. The weather was bright, the sea smooth. The scratch crew of firemen toiled faithfully in the torrid caverns far below, and the mighty engines throbbed unceasingly to whirl the twin screws that pushed the foaming miles astern. On the bridge the captain and his officers went cheerfully about their tasks, thankful for clear skies and a good day’s run.
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.
The two seafarers slumbered lightly, as is the habit of men used to turning out to stand watch. And they were not likely to mistake the report of a revolver for any sound to be expected in the routine of things on shipboard. O’Shea leaned over from the upper berth and asked in low tones:
“Are ye awake, Johnny?”
“Sure I am. Did you hear the rumpus?”
“Yes. At first I thought I was dreaming we were aboard the old Fearless with Jiminez, the big black nigger from Venezuela, taking pot shots at me. What did ye make of it? It sounded like pretty lively gun-play to me.”
“It wasn’t no ordinary sailors’ fracas,” hoarsely whispered Johnny Kent. “Several of those shots was fired for’ard, and others came from below, about amidships. We heard ’em through the bulkheads.”
“And there was some running to and fro on deck,” said O’Shea, “by men with no shoes on. I heard their bare feet slapping the planks over me head.”
“We haven’t been boarded by pirates, and, anyhow, pirates are out of date in the Atlantic trade, Cap’n Mike. The ship hasn’t stopped. It would have waked me in a jiffy if her engines had quit poundin’ along, even for a minute.”
“I thought I heard yells, faint and far away, from men in trouble, but ’tis all quiet now, Johnny.”
“Too darn quiet. The vessel has slowed down a trifle, by six or eight revolutions, but she’s joggin’ along all serene. Shall we take a turn on deck and look around?”
They moved quietly into the long passageway which led to the main saloon staircase. Ascending this, they crossed the large lounging-hall to the nearest exit to the promenade deck. As was customary, the heavy storm-door had been closed for the night. It was never locked in good weather, however, and O’Shea turned the brass knob to thrust it open. The door withstood his effort, and he put his shoulder against it in vain.
“’Tis fastened on the outside,” he muttered to Johnny Kent. “We are cooped up, and for what?”
“Try the door on the starboard side of the hall,” suggested the engineer. “Maybe this one got jammed accidental.”
They crossed the hall and hammered against the other door with no better success. The situation disturbed them. They gazed at each other in silence. O’Shea went to one of the bull’s-eye windows and peered outside. The steamer was snoring steadily through the quiet sea, and he could discern the crests of the waves as they broke, flashed white, and slid past. The electric lights on deck had been extinguished, but presently a figure passed rapidly and was visible for an instant in the shaft of light from one of the saloon passageways. O’Shea had a glimpse of the blue uniform and gilt braid of a ship’s officer.
“I wish I could ask him a question or two,” said O’Shea. “Let us try to break out somewhere else. Now that we seem to be locked in, I am obstinate enough to keep on trying.”
They made a tour of the halls, bulkhead passages, and alleys, seeking every place of egress from the first-class quarters. Every door had been closed and fastened from the other side. A steward was supposed to be on watch to answer the electric bells in the state-rooms, but he could not be found. There was no one to interview, no way of gaining information.
The cabin superstructure and partition walls were of steel. The brass-bound ports or windows were too small for a grown man to wriggle through. The passengers were as effectually confined within their own part of the ship as if they had been locked in a penitentiary. There was no means of communicating with the ship’s officers.
It seemed useless to awaken the other passengers and inform them of this singular discovery. There would be nothing but confusion, futile argument, and excitement.
“Maybe the skipper decided to lock us in every night,” hopefully suggested Johnny Kent. “If some addle-headed gent with a habit of walkin’ in his sleep should prance overboard, the company might be liable for heavy damages.”
“Nonsense! There are strange doings aboard this fine, elegant steamer,” sharply returned O’Shea. “’Tis too big for me. We will roll into our bunks till morning. I will lose me sleep for no man.”
When Johnny Kent awoke blinking and yawning, Captain O’Shea was standing in front of the open port through which the morning wind gushed cool and sweet. The sun had lifted above the horizon and the sea was bathed in rosy radiance. The aspect of the sunrise seemed to fascinate Captain O’Shea, but his emotion was rather amazement than admiration. With a strong ejaculation he whirled about to shout at his comrade:
“Do ye notice it, you sleepy old grampus? Does it look wrong to you?”
O’Shea was dancing with excitement as he turned again to stare at the cloudless sun and smiling sea. Johnny Kent thought to humor him and amiably murmured:
“She always comes up in the mornin’ regular as a clock, Cap’n Mike, and I guess she always will. Ain’t she on time, or what’s the matter with her?”
“The sun is where it belongs,” cried O’Shea, “but this ship is not. Her course has been shifted during the night. Man, we are not on the great circle course to New York at all. The steamer has gone mad. We are running due south to fetch to the west’ard of the Azores.”
“You don’t say!” exclaimed the engineer. “That sounds perfectly ridiculous. I guess I’d better put on my breeches and take a promenade. I wonder do we get any breakfast in this crazy packet?”
The first passenger encountered was Jenkins P. Chase, whose morning task it was to walk briskly around the deck, by order of his physician, before the other voyagers were astir. His steward had failed to appear with the dry toast and coffee required to fortify his system for this healthful exercise, and he was in a savage temper as he sputtered at O’Shea:
“What infernal nonsense is this? I can’t find a steward or an officer. The service is rotten, it’s positively damnable. And I can’t go on deck. Every door is locked. I’ll make it hot for the captain.”
“’Tis my advice to sit tight and take it easy, Mr. Chase,” soothingly returned O’Shea. “I am afraid the captain has troubles of his own this morning.”
“What do you mean? What do you know about it? Who the devil are you? Do you think I have no influence with the management of this miserable steamship company?”
“’Tis a long, wet walk from here to the company’s offices,” said O’Shea with an amused smile. “You are a tremendous man ashore, no doubt. I have read about ye in the newspapers. But unless I guess wrong, you will take your medicine with the rest of us.”
Mr. Jenkins P. Chase bolted down the staircase into the spacious dining-saloon. For lack of anything better to do, O’Shea and Johnny Kent followed him. The tables had been set overnight, but at this hour of the morning stewards should have been wiping down paint, cleaning brasswork, or getting ready to serve breakfast. The room was silent and deserted.
Jenkins P. Chase halted abruptly and his hands went out in a nervous, puzzled gesture. O’Shea brushed past him and advanced along an aisle between the tables to the galley or kitchen doors at the farther end of the saloon. These, too, were locked, but he could hear the rattle of pans and pots and a sound of voices, as if the cooks had begun the day’s work.
“That is the first cheerful symptom,” he said to himself. “The news will put heart into Johnny Kent, though I wish there were more indications of circulatin’ the grub among the passengers.”
The dictatorial manner of Jenkins P. Chase had become oddly subdued.
“You said we must take our medicine?” he remarked to O’Shea. “For God’s sake, what is wrong with this ship?”
“I know very little, my dear man. We were locked in during the night, clapped under hatches, as the saying is. And the course of the vessel was altered to head her for the South Atlantic instead of the Newfoundland Banks.”
“But nothing of the sort could possibly happen on a steamer like the Alsatian,” protested Mr. Chase. “I mean to say there could be no blood-and-thunder business on an Atlantic liner.”
“A lot of things have happened at sea that were perfectly impossible,” gravely spoke Johnny Kent.
As if the mystery had communicated itself in some subtle, telepathic fashion, the passengers began to appear from their state-rooms at an earlier hour than usual. Unable to go on deck, they congregated in the halls, the library, and the parlor. Rumor spread swiftly and intense uneasiness pervaded the company. For some inscrutable reason they had been made prisoners. This much was evident. The realization inspired a feeling akin to panic. Angry denunciation, with not a solitary member of the ship’s crew discoverable, sounded rather foolish. The men loudest in airing their opinions soon subsided and eyed one another in a mood of glum bewilderment. One or two women laughed hysterically.
Captain O’Shea looked about to find that friendly scientist Professor Ernst Wilhelm Vonderholtz, who was usually ready with a cordial morning greeting. He was not among the assembled passengers. Presumably he was still in his state-room. A few minutes after this O’Shea found occasion to stroll past the professor’s door, which stood open. The room was empty.
Inexplicably, persistently, the personality of the blond scientist had linked itself with O’Shea’s strange sense of foreboding. He decided to investigate the empty state-room, for he observed at once that the bedding had not been disarranged in either berth.
“Nobody slept in here last night,” said O’Shea to himself.
The room contained no luggage, and no personal effects excepting several articles of discarded clothing. O’Shea picked up a coat and examined it curiously. The pockets were empty, but he made an interesting discovery. The label stitched inside the collar bore the name of a well-known ready-made clothing firm of Broadway, New York.
“And he told us it was his first trip to our wonderful country,” was O’Shea’s comment. “As a liar he has me beaten both ways from the jack.”
He resumed his careful investigation of the room, and was rewarded by discovering a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles on the floor beneath the lower berth, where they must have been purposely tossed aside. It was reasonable to conclude that the owner had no more use for them.
“The bird has flown,” soliloquized O’Shea, gazing hard at the spectacles and handling them rather gingerly, as if they might be bewitched. “He couldn’t fly overboard. Anyhow, he didn’t. I’ll bet me head on that. And he has not eloped with the black-eyed school-teacher, for I saw her in the library just now. And where would they elope to? He must be still in the ship.”
In a very thoughtful mood he returned to the main staircase, where Johnny Kent was hopefully peering in the direction of the dining-saloon.
“There’s something doin’ down there,” announced the engineer. “The doors were shut and bolted from the inside a few minutes ago. Maybe they’ll open again pretty soon and the bell will ring for grub.”
“Forget that awful appetite and listen to me,” exclaimed O’Shea. “The professor has vanished entirely.”
“Committed suicide, you suppose? If he really fell in love with the school-teacher, it’s not unlikely, Cap’n Mike. It takes ’em that way sometimes. I’ve felt like it myself once or twice.”
“If he jumped overboard, he took his baggage with him. And he had a couple of hand-bags when he came on board, for I saw them. ’Tis more likely the divil flew away with him. Here’s his spectacles. He left them behind. I tell ye, Johnny Kent, and you may laugh at me all ye like, for you are a much older man than me, and you ought to be wiser, which you are not—that chemical gentleman was not as mild and nice as he made out. His eye was bad. And he has brought trouble to this ship. Where is he now? Can ye answer that?”
“One of those revolver bullets may have perforated him while he was strollin’ on deck and figurin’ out some new problems in chemistry.”
“Your language is a clean waste of words,” admonished O’Shea. “’Tis me rash intention to interview the school-teacher, Miss Jenness. She knows more about the professor than the rest of us. This is no joke of a predicament we are in, ye can take my word for it.”
Miss Jenness was to be discerned, at a casual glance, as a young woman with a mind of her own. The bold O’Shea approached her timidly, his courage oozing. Her black eyes surveyed him coldly and critically and made him feel as though his feet were several sizes too large.
“I beg pardon,” he stammered, “but have ye heard that the professor is missing?”
Surprise and alarm drove the color from her face. Evidently the tidings came as a shock to her. Her perturbation failed wholly to convince O’Shea that she could furnish no clew to the mystery. One question should have leaped swiftly to her lips. It was the one question to ask. Was it supposed that Professor Vonderholtz had committed suicide by leaping overboard? Captain O’Shea waited for her to say something of the sort. She sat pale and silent. The dark, handsome, matured young woman baffled him. He felt that he was no match for her.
“’Tis not a case of suicide, Miss Jenness,” said he.
“Then what is it, may I ask?” she replied in even tones.
O’Shea sat down beside her and spoke in the caressing, blarneying way which he had used to advantage in his time.
“As the most charming girl in the ship, ’twas quite natural for the professor to be nice to you, Miss Jenness. He is a man of taste and intelligence. Now ’tis apparent that something most extraordinary has happened aboard this liner. She is being navigated to parts unknown, and we are helpless to prevent it. ’Tis a wholesale abduction, as ye might say. Professor Vonderholtz disappears at the same time, bag and baggage, leaving his gold spectacles as a souvenir. What do you know about him, if you please? Did he drop any hints to you?”
The girl bit her lip and strove to hide an agitation which made her hands tremble so that she locked them in her lap.
“What should I know about him?” she demanded with a sudden blaze of anger, as if resenting the questions as grossly impertinent. “Why do you come to me? As a travelling acquaintance, Professor Vonderholtz did not take me into his confidence. Are you sure he is not in the steamer?”
“I am quite sure he is still in the steamer, Miss Jenness. For my part, I wish he was overboard,” grimly answered O’Shea.
“Then why all this commotion about him?” she asked.
“Are you sure he gave you no impression that he was not a university professor at all, but another kind of man entirely?” stubbornly pursued O’Shea.
“I did not discuss his profession. Chemistry does not interest me,” was her icily dignified answer. “If you must know, we talked about books we had read and places we had visited. Professor Vonderholtz is delightfully cosmopolitan and knows how to make himself interesting.”
“I am not making much headway with you,” sighed O’Shea. “Never mind. It will astonish ye, no doubt, and you will be very angry if I make a guess that you and Professor Vonderholtz knew each other before you met on the deck of the Alsatian. And ’tis more than a casual acquaintance that exists between you. You are taken all aback to hear the news that he cannot be found this morning. I grant ye that, but you know more about him than ye will tell me. I have said me say, Miss Jenness.”
She paid no heed to him, but rose abruptly and walked in the direction of her state-room. O’Shea watched her until she vanished, and then he murmured with an air of chagrin:
“I may be a pretty fair shipmaster, but as a detective ye can mark me down as a failure. ’Twas a random shot about their knowing each other ashore, though I have a notion it landed somewhere near the bull’s-eye.”
Johnny Kent was still posted within strategic distance of the dining-saloon entrance.
“What luck, Cap’n Mike?” he asked.
“Divil a bit.”
“Women move in mysterious ways. I can’t handle ’em myself. Say, are we goin’ to stay cooped up in these cabins like a flock of sick chickens? I ain’t reconciled and I don’t intend to stand for it.”
“No more do I, Johnny. As the only two seafarin’ men among all these landlubbers, ’tis up to us to twist the tail of this situation.”
“It surely ain’t right for us to knuckle under, Cap’n Mike, without putting up an almighty stiff argument. We’ve fought our way out of some pretty tight corners.”
From the dining-room entrance came the noise of the heavy bulkhead doors sliding on their bearings. Johnny Kent shouted joyfully and lumbered down the staircase. A moment later he was bellowing to the other passengers:
“Grub’s on the table. Come along and help yourselves. The worst is over.”
The hungry company hastened down and jostled through the doorway to the tables, upon which had been set dishes of oatmeal, potatoes, ham and eggs, and pots of coffee. The galley and pantry doors were still closed. Not a steward was visible. The passengers must help themselves. They could eat this simple fare or leave it alone.
The dining-saloon seemed empty, uncanny. Except for the steady vibration of the engines, it was as though the ship had been deserted by her crew. Such talk as went on was in low tones. There was in the air a feeling that hostile influences, unseen, unheard, but very menacing, were all around them. They ate to satisfy hunger, glancing often at the empty chairs of the commander and the chief officer of the Alsatian. O’Shea was more interested in the vacant chair of Professor Ernst Wilhelm Vonderholtz.
A few people carried trays and plates of food to their rooms, as if to make sure of the next meal. Palpitant uncertainty and dread were the emotions common to all. 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?”
“There are some good men among the passengers, Johnny, but we will have to show them what to do. ’Tis time that the two of us held a council of war.”
They made a slow, painstaking tour of the first-cabin quarters and convinced themselves that every exit from the steel deck-houses was still securely fastened. Then they sought every window port which commanded a view of the upper decks or superstructures of the ship. They were unable to catch a glimpse, from any angle, of the canvas-screened bridge or to discover whether the captain and the navigating officers were on duty as usual. Upon the forward part of the ship they descried several seamen at work. Down below the rumble of an ash-hoist was heard. The essential business of the ship was going on without interruption.
“One trifle ye will note,” said O’Shea. “The decks were not washed down this morning.”
“The vessel looks slack, come to look at her close,” replied Johnny Kent. “A gang of sailors was paintin’ the boats and awning-stanchions yesterday, but they’ve knocked off.”
“’Tis curious how the passengers of a big steamer can be cut off from what is going on,” observed O’Shea. “I never realized how easy it was. And there’s no choppin’ a way out of these steel houses.”
“If we do get out, Cap’n Mike, what in blazes are we apt to run into?” the engineer exclaimed, rumpling his mop of gray hair with both hands “Whoever it was that done the fancy pistol-shootin’ last night ain’t likely to hesitate to do it again. And there’s only two of us with guns unless a few of the passengers happen to have ’em in their valises.”
“I will be ashamed of myself and disgusted with you if we don’t mix things up before this time to-morrow, ye fat old reprobate,” severely spake Captain Michael O’Shea, and the words were weighed with finality. “The Lord gave us brains, didn’t He? If we let ourselves be run away with aboard this floating hotel we ought to beg admittance to the nearest home for aged and decrepit seafarin’ men.”
“It’s a perfectly ridiculous situation to be ketched in, as I said before, Cap’n Mike.”
II
The passengers so mysteriously imprisoned in the first-cabin quarters were soon to meet again that vanished scientist and fellow-voyager Professor Ernst Wilhelm Vonderholtz. Shortly before noon one of the doors which had blocked exit to the promenade-deck was opened from the outside. An alert, blond man stepped upon the brass threshold and stood gazing at the huddled, wondering passengers. The expression of his keenly intelligent face reflected easy confidence and half-smiling contempt.
He wore the blue uniform cap and blouse of a ship’s officer, obviously purloined from the lawful owner, for the insignia was that of the International Line. The gold-rimmed spectacles and the precise, studious manner discarded, it was painfully apparent that he was something very different from a harmless professor of chemistry.
Behind him, and filling the doorway, stood four other men in the grimy garments of the stoke-hole. The smears of coal-dust which blackened their features gave them a forbidding, sinister appearance. They were openly armed with revolvers. Their leader motioned them to remain where they were. He moved just inside the hall and addressed the passengers in his clean-cut English with its Teutonic shades and intonations. The audience was flatteringly attentive. The sight of the four grim stokers in the background compelled absorbed attention.
“This steamer is in my control,” crisply began the singularly transformed university professor. “It is useless for you to wax indignant, to weep, to protest. The thing has been most carefully planned. I will explain a little in order that you may know why it is best for you to do as you are ordered. The strike of those firemen in Liverpool? It was fomented by my agents. They caused the strike to occur on the day of sailing. It was necessary to get rid of that crew of firemen. In their places were shipped my own—our own men. The company was surprised to find a new crew so easily. The stupid management suspected nothing. Many months, much money it had taken to select these men of mine, to have them all together in Liverpool prepared for the opportunity.”
The vanity of the man showed itself in this frank praise of his own adroit and masterly leadership. His ego could not help asserting itself. Now his easy demeanor stiffened and his face became hard and cold as he went on to say with more vehemence and an occasional gesture:
“Who are we? You wonder and you are afraid. It is the Communal Brotherhood, powerful and secret, which seizes this steamer. This is a bold skirmish in the war against capital, against privilege, against the parasitic class which must be utterly destroyed. Labor is the only wealth; but does labor own the factories, the steamships, the land? No, it is enslaved. This stroke will be talked about all over the world. Wealth is always cowardly. It will tremble and——”
From the fringe of the silent company rose the shrill, rasping accents of Jenkins P. Chase. The American multimillionaire was fragile, dyspeptic, and nervous, a mere shred of a man physically, but, given sufficient provocation, he had aggressive courage in abundance. Nor had his enemies in the world of commerce and finance ever called him a coward. This situation exasperated him beyond words.
“You’re a fuddle-headed liar, you bragging, anarchistic scoundrel!” he cried, shaking his fist at the speaker. “Cut out all that hot air and balderdash. We can read it in books. Get down to business. What do you propose to do with us? Hold me for ransom?”
The eyes of the bogus Professor Ernst Wilhelm Vonderholtz were unpleasantly malevolent as he calmly answered:
“It is an accident that you yourself are on board. You were not included in our plans. I do not intend to hold you for ransom. It will be doing a great service to mankind if I throw you into the sea.”
Quite undaunted, for his blood was up, Jenkins P. Chase flung back at him:
“You’re a lunatic. I presume you are after the two millions in gold, consigned to New York bankers, which is in the ship’s treasure-room. You have the upper hand? Why don’t you take the plunder and leave us alone?”
“We require no advice from you,” and the captor showed his teeth in a mirthless smile. “I wish to inform the passengers that they will be fed as long as they shall behave themselves. They also have permission to use a part of the promenade deck which will be roped off and guarded. Any person attempting to reach other parts of the ship will be shot. It is possible that you will suffer no harm. What to do with you has not yet been decided.”
That interested observer, Captain Michael O’Shea, swiftly whispered to Johnny Kent:
“Tuck your gun under the cushion of the settee behind us. The passengers will be searched for arms. The professor knows his business.”
The acute mind of Jenkins P. Chase had already concluded that these two men were ready-witted and unafraid. He marked their bearing, and he was impressed with the fact that O’Shea had been aware of trouble aboard the ship before the other passengers suspected it. Inviting them into his luxurious rooms, he brusquely demanded:
“What’s your opinion? Have you any suggestions?”
“I am a shipmaster by trade and me large friend here has been chief engineer of a good many steamers,” answered O’Shea. “We have knocked some holes in the laws of the high seas ourselves, but ye can set us down as amateurs alongside this rampageous chemical professor. ’Tis the biggest thing of the kind that was ever pulled off. This Vonderholtz has brains and nerve. And he is as cold-blooded as a fish. The man is bad clear through. And he is crammed full of conceit, which is his one weak point, the flaw in his system.”
“Call him all the names you please, but how does that help us?” snapped Jenkins P. Chase.
“Go easy, my dear man. ’Twill do no good to hop about like an agitated flea. What I am getting at is this. Vonderholtz is so well pleased with his plans that he thinks they cannot be upset. We may catch him off his guard.”
“But what if we do?” demanded Mr. Chase. “These villains have captured the whole crew of the steamer—officers, sailors, stewards.”
“’Twas not hard to take them by surprise in the night and lock them in their quarters under guard, sir,” explained O’Shea. “Half of them were off watch and asleep, ye must remember. Vonderholtz has near a hundred and fifty men, and no doubt every one of them came aboard with a gun in his clothes. There are enough of them to work the ship and to spare, and I suppose there are navigators and engineers amongst them.”
“I can believe all that,” irritably interrupted Jenkins P. Chase. “Now that the damnable piracy has succeeded, it is easy enough to see how a gang with a capable leader can take possession of any Atlantic liner. Do you think these scoundrels can be bribed?”
“’Tis not probable. Vonderholtz is a fanatic with his wild ideas about society, and he has recruited men of his own stamp. Besides, they have the two millions in gold in the strong-room to divide ‘for the good of humanity.’”
“How will they get away with the gold? The whole thing is preposterous,” snorted the millionaire.
“I have read in the newspapers that Mr. Jenkins P. Chase once stole a railroad,” pleasantly returned O’Shea. “Maybe you can figure it out better than us two sailormen how Vonderholtz stole a steamship.”
“A good hit! You’re not so slow yourself,” cried the other, not in the least offended.
“The steamer is steering into southern waters,” resumed O’Shea, “and ’tis likely that it was arranged beforehand for another vessel to meet her and take the treasure and the men aboard. What will they do with the Alsatian? I misdoubt they will sink her with all hands of us, though Vonderholtz would lose no sleep over it, but he will want the world to know about his great blow against the capitalists and the parasites and the likes of us. It is a joke to class Johnny Kent and me as enemies of the poor, could ye look into our pockets.”
“It certainly makes me swell up and feel rich to be lumped with the plutocrats,” cheerfully observed Johnny Kent.
Jenkins P. Chase let his small bright eyes rove for a moment, and his wise, wizened features were sardonically amused as he said:
“We’re in a floating lunatic asylum, where my money is no good. 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. You must put it out of your head that your life has any special gilt-edged value out here at sea. We sink or swim together. And I am not anxious to chop off me own existence to please this madman of a Professor Ernst Wilhelm Vonderholtz.”
“He said something about chucking me overboard,” sighed Jenkins P. Chase.
“And he looked as if he meant it,” amiably observed Johnny Kent.
With this, the twain bade the millionaire take heart and left him to his unhappy meditations. An idea had come to Johnny Kent and he wished to thrash it over with his comrade in the seclusion of their own room. For a long time they argued it, testing every detail, O’Shea dissuading, but convinced against his will that the thing should be attempted. It was a desperate hazard, a forlorn hope, and gray-haired, honest old Johnny Kent must stake his life. Success meant the recapture of the ship, and the engineer was obstinately determined to undertake it.
“You will have to go it alone, Johnny,” said O’Shea, “and I cannot help if things break wrong for you. It will worry the heart out of me to let ye do it.”
“Pshaw, Cap’n Mike! A battered old sot like me ain’t worth much to anybody. If I slip up, and they put out my lights, I want to ask one favor of you. Shoot that blankety-blank chemical son of a sea-cook for me, will you? It’ll be my last wish.”
“I promise to fill him full of holes, if his gang pots me next minute,” simply replied O’Shea, and they shook hands on it.
After dark that night Johnny Kent rummaged in his steamer trunk and fished out an oil-stained suit of blue overalls, his working uniform when in active service. From another bundle he selected two powerful adjustable wrenches which could be concealed in his clothing. While he was thus engaged O’Shea squeezed into the room, affectionately punched him in the ribs, and exclaimed:
“To look the part ye must blacken your face and hands. We have no coal-dust, but there are two long drinks in that bottle of Scotch yonder. Let us hurl them into our systems, and I will make good use of the cork.”
“And burnt-cork me same as I used to do when we boys played nigger minstrels, Cap’n Mike? You’re wiser than Daniel Webster.”
When the job was finished, Johnny Kent would have passed anywhere as the grimiest, most unrecognizable stoker that ever handled slice-bar or shovel. Peering into the small mirror, he chuckled:
“I feel like cussin’ myself from force of habit. Well, I’ll just sit here and wait for you to give me the word.”
“Aye, aye, Johnny. I will start things moving right away. This is au revoir. Good-luck and God bless ye!”
“’Til we meet again, Cap’n Mike. Don’t fret about me.”
Leaving the stout-hearted old adventurer to pore over a dog-eared copy of the American Poultry Journal by way of passing the time, Captain O’Shea returned to the library and called together a dozen of the men passengers whom he knew to be dependable. He had already explained what they were to do, and without attracting the notice of the sentries posted at the outside doorways, they heaped in a corner of the library all the combustible material they could lay their hands on, mostly newspapers and magazines. Several contributed empty cigar boxes, another a crate in which fruit had been brought aboard, and Jenkins P. Chase appeared with a large bottle of alcohol used for massage.
The stuff was placed close to the wooden bookshelves, which, with their contents, were likely to blaze and smoulder and make a great deal of smoke.
While the men were thus engaged Captain O’Shea chanced to notice the school-teacher, Miss Jenness, who halted while passing the library door. She moved nearer, listened intently to the talk, and then turned away to walk rapidly in the direction of the starboard exit to the deck.
Suspecting her purpose, O’Shea followed and overtook her. Between her and Vonderholtz some sort of an understanding existed, some relation more intimate than she was willing to reveal. O’Shea was alert to prevent her from spoiling his plans. She might not intend to play the part of a spy, but her behavior had been mysterious and she was not to be trusted.
O’Shea called her name sharply, and the girl paused. He moved to her side and said in low tones:
“Are you going on deck, Miss Jenness? I advise ye not to just now.”
“Why? I—I—yes. I am going on deck.”
She was manifestly startled, unable to hold herself in hand.
“You will give me your word of honor that ye propose to hold no communication with Vonderholtz and to send him no message?”
She hesitated, at a loss for words, and O’Shea felt certain that he had guessed her motive aright. His decision was instant and ruthless. Standing close to her, he said:
“You will be good enough to go to your state-room for the rest of this night, Miss Jenness, and ye will go at once, moving no nearer the sentries or the deck, and making no outcry. ’Tis a most impolite speech to make to a handsome girl like yourself, but I have no time for courtesy.”
Miss Jenness glanced aside. Captain O’Shea stood between her and the passage to the deck. Then she looked at him, and knew that he meant what he said. Her lips parted, her breath was short and quick, and she moved not for a long moment. It was a clash of strong wills, but the woman realized that she was beaten.
It meant death to O’Shea should he be discovered in the act of setting fire to the ship, but he was fighting for more than his own skin. The issue appealed to him as curiously impersonal. His own safety had become a trifling matter. He was merely an instrument in the hands of fate, an agent commissioned to help thwart the tragic destiny that overhung the vessel and her people. The girl was an episode; not so much a personality as a cog of the mysterious, evil mechanism devised by the blond beast Vonderholtz.
“I think I will go to my room,” said Miss Jenness.
“Thank you. ’Tis wiser,” softly replied O’Shea.
So fatuously confident was Vonderholtz that his plans were invulnerable that he had taken no precautions to have the first-cabin quarters patrolled and inspected beyond the exits. He had herded the passengers like a flock of sheep and concerned himself no further about them. They could start no uprising by themselves, and unarmed.
Captain O’Shea felt confident that the men in possession of the ship could get the fire under control. At any rate, it must burn itself out within the steel walls of the deck-house. State-rooms and halls might be gutted, but he quoted his favorite adage that one cannot make an omelet without breaking eggs. For his part, he would rather burn and sink the ship than meekly to surrender to this mob of pirates.
Thereupon he scratched a match and touched off the fire. Wetted down with alcohol, the newspapers blazed up fiercely and the flames licked the paintwork of shelves and panels. Smoke drove into the halls in thick gusts. The passengers, some of them genuinely frightened, shouted lustily, and there was much confusion.
O’Shea was delighted. His conflagration was a success. The sentries at the doorways and the men on deck ran in pell-mell and dashed out again to find hose and buckets. They bawled orders to one another and were bewildered by the smoke which billowed into the passages.
Before the hose lines had been dragged in and while the fire was unchecked, a bulky figure in blue overalls, his face blackened as with coal-dust, emerged from a state-room, peered cautiously into the smoke, and with tread surprisingly agile for his weight and years, ran straight toward the crowd of men in the large hall outside the blazing library. The smoke effectually curtained his dash for the deck. The doorways had been left unguarded. Those whom he shoved out of his way mistook him for one of Vonderholtz’s crew.
The stratagem of the fire enabled Johnny Kent to escape from the steel-walled prison and to run the gauntlet of the guards on deck. At top speed he clattered down a ladder to the next deck below, slowed his gait, and stood puffing to regain his breath, for he was a short-winded hero and ample of girth.
In the printed matter advertising the International Line he had discovered a plan of the Alsatian, drawn with much detail. He knew it by heart, and was confident that he would not go astray in the labyrinth of her many decks and bulkhead passages. Moreover, he was a man with a lively interest in his calling, and when the Alsatian was launched he had studied the descriptions of her machinery and the like with a keen professional eye.
Without hesitation he stepped nimbly through an iron door amidships and entered a narrow alley lighted by an electric bulb. A man, also clad in the overalls of a fireman or machinist, brushed past him, and said, without looking up:
“Fire amount to anything?”
“A stream of water will douse it,” gruffly answered Johnny Kent as he emerged from the alley into the great, clangorous open space above the engine-room. Below him ran iron ladders and platforms, flight after flight, past the huge, shining cylinders, down to the toiling piston-rods and the whirling crank-shafts. Dynamos purred and auxiliary engines hummed in shadowy corners and the pumps beat time to this titanic anthem.
Johnny Kent wiped the dripping sweat from his face and the burnt cork smeared itself in grotesque streaks and blotches. He had reasoned it out that among a hundred and fifty men sailing together for the first time he could pass unchallenged long enough to serve his purpose. And now that he had gained the engine-room his very presence there would safeguard him against suspicion. Men were coming and going, and several of the fire-room gang chatted with the engineers on watch. It would be easier to mingle with them because of this fraternal slackness of discipline.
His stout heart thumping against his ribs, but his spirit undaunted, Johnny Kent stepped from the lowest ladder to the grating of the engine-room floor. Pulling the greasy black cap low over his eyes, he dodged behind a steam-pipe and made for the entrance to the nearest fire-room. Stripped to the waist in the red glare, the stokers were rattling coal into furnace doors. Johnny Kent said never a word, but picked up a shovel and took his station in front of a boiler. An officer of some sort shouted at him:
“Who sent you down?”
“I was ordered to shift my watch,” bellowed Johnny Kent.
“Good enough. We are short-handed,” was the reply.
The heat and the arduous exertion made Johnny Kent grunt, but he had been a mighty man with a shovel in his time, and he would show these scoundrels how to feed a furnace. He observed that armed guards were stationed in this compartment, and concluded that some of the steamer’s regular crew had been set to work under compulsion.
Thus far he had made no blunders. There had been no flaw in his plans. His greatest fear was that Vonderholtz might come below and recognize him. But the conflagration conducted by Captain O’Shea was likely to keep the leader on deck.
Painstakingly Johnny Kent sought to recall every scrap of information he had read in technical journals concerning the under-water specifications of the Alsatian. His memory was tenacious and he believed that he could trust it now.
He had entered the fire-room in the middle of a watch, and therefore had not long to serve as a stoker before the men were relieved and another gang took their places. When the next watch came trooping in, there was much passing to and fro, and as one of the crowd Johnny Kent felt much safer against discovery. He knew where to find dark corners and tortuous passageways in this complex, noisy part of the ship, far below the water-line.
When the firemen of his watch began to climb the ladders to their living quarters, he was not among them. Two hours later, a bulky gray-headed person in blue overalls might have been seen crawling on hands and knees or wriggling on his stomach in the bilge of the Alsatian’s hull, beneath the floor.
From the state-room wall he had unscrewed the small candle lamp provided for use when the electric-lighting system was turned off. With this feeble light he was searching for the sea-cocks, those massive valves set into the bottom of a steamer’s hull for the purpose of letting in the ocean and flooding her in the emergency of fire in the cargo holds and coal-bunkers. A steamer is sometimes saved from total destruction by beaching her in shoal water and opening the sea-cocks.
To open these valves in the bottom of the Alsatian was to admit a rush of water which would soon rise to the furnaces and engine-room in greater volume than the steam-pumps could hold in check. It was not Johnny Kent’s mad intention to sink the liner in mid-ocean, although this was a possible consequence.
After prodigious exertion, he found what he sought and bent his burly strength to releasing the gate-valves constructed to withstand the pressure of the sea. He heard the water pour in with sobbing gush and murmur and splash against the steel plates and beams. With a healthy prejudice against being drowned in a cataract of his own devising, Johnny Kent scrambled in retreat and regained the engine-room compartment, bruised and exhausted.
Thus far he had succeeded because of the sheer audacity of the enterprise. It was a seemingly impossible thing to do, but the process of reasoning which inspired it was particularly sane and cool-headed. He had been unchallenged because it never entered the minds of his foes that any one would dare such a stratagem. They had gained the upper hand by means of force. In a game of wits they were out-manœuvred. Johnny Kent showed the superior intelligence.
“It looks as if my job as Daniel in the lions’ den was about done,” he said to himself.
He became a stowaway until the next watch was changed in the fire-room. Then he mingled with the crowd of sooty men who went off duty. Unmolested, he clambered up the ladders, slipped into an alley-way, and came to the promenade deck with the blessed open sky above him. Ostentatiously swinging a wrench, he ambled aft and reconnoitred the entrance to the first-cabin quarters. Men were dragging out lines of hose, others chopping away charred woodwork and pitching it overboard. One of them paused to look at the large grimy person in overalls, but he displayed the wrench and casually explained:
“Orders from the engine-room. The heat warped the skylight fittings. Hot work, wasn’t it?”
Once inside the doorway, Johnny Kent made for his state-room, which had been untouched by fire. O’Shea saw him pass, but made no sign of recognition. A few minutes later the comrades twain were holding a glad reunion behind the bolted door. The engineer collapsed on the transom berth and sat in a ponderous heap, holding his head in his hands.
“My legs are trembly and I feel all gone in the pit of my stummick, Cap’n Mike,” he huskily croaked. “I was plumb near scared to death. This easy livin’ has made me soft, and I ain’t as young as I was. But I got away with it.”
“How? ’Tis a miracle ye have performed this night, Johnny, me boy.”
“I let in the water and she’ll flood herself,” was the weary reply. “It was easy after I once ran the blockade. What about your bonfire? She was a corker by the looks of things.”
“She was that,” laughed O’Shea. “Vonderholtz came boilin’ in with his men and put it out after a tussle. He suspected we touched it off, but he could not prove it. It was the stump of a cigar that some careless gentleman tossed into the library waste-basket, ye understand. Let me help you get your clothes off. Lie down and rest yourself.”
Kicking off the overalls, Johnny Kent lighted his pipe, stretched himself in his bunk, and exclaimed:
“I’ll turn in with my duds on. We are liable to be roused out between now and morning.”
“Are ye sure the ship will not go to the bottom?” anxiously asked O’Shea.
“I won’t swear to it, Cap’n Mike, but this is a well-built steamer, and she was new a year ago. Her bulkheads will stand up under a lot of pressure. The engine and fire room compartments will fill to the water-line, but she’ll float, or I’ve made a darn bad blunder.”
“You know your business, Johnny. If the blackguards think she is sinking under them, ’tis all we ask.”
“Tuck me in and wash my face,” murmured the engineer. “I’m too doggoned tired to worry about it.”
O’Shea made him comfortable and withdrew to keep an eye on events. Order had been restored. The passengers were once more closely guarded, and as a new precaution sentries were stationed in the halls. O’Shea waited until the men with revolvers were relieved at midnight and another squad took their places. Then he heard one of them say to another that there was serious trouble below. The ship had run over a bit of submerged wreckage or somehow damaged her bottom plates. She was leaking. The water was making into the midship compartments.
To O’Shea this was the best news in the world. With an easier mind, he went to his room. The hateful inaction, the humiliating imprisonment, were almost over. God helping him, he would whip this crew of outlaws on the morrow and win the mastery of the Alsatian.
Before daybreak Johnny Kent turned over in his bunk and growled:
“She’s slowed down, Cap’n Mike. The engines are no more than turnin’ over. That means the water is almost up to the furnaces and the men are desertin’ their posts. You can’t keep firemen below when the black water is sloshin’ under their feet. It gets their nerve.”
“The whole crew will go to pieces if the panicky feeling once takes hold of them, Johnny. They have never worked together. A lot of them are no seamen at all. And Vonderholtz will not be able to hold them.”
The Alsatian moved more and more sluggishly, like a dying ship. The water was pouring into her faster than the pumps could lift it overside. It was only a question of hours before the fires would be extinguished, the machinery stilled, and the liner no more than a sodden hulk rolling aimlessly in the Atlantic.