The Tattooed Man

Steadily Tod returned the burning gaze of the cook.

He never took his eyes from the other's face. Then, as he watched, he saw the features suddenly soften. The cook laughed shortly. "Sufferin' mackerel! If I hit the kid, he'll never get the coffee up to the bridge."

Behind Tod the mate grunted. "He'll never git it there, anyway, in this gale. The lubber'll probably get swept off the ladder." He went out chuckling. "He's larnin', Tom. He's larnin' all right."

The boy stepped back to the stove and took up the coffee-pot. "Yeh, that's right," commented the Tattooed Man; "better hurry along with the Java."

Tod did not answer. At the door he paused as the cook resumed: "Watch your step going up that ladder. I don't want to lose the only mess boy aboard."

Tod gave him a quick sweeping glance. He couldn't understand the man. In a fury of anger one moment; calm, human the next. Baffled, he slipped out the door.

Sudden booming gusts of wind hummed down the alleyway. The ferocity of the gale sent him reeling against the boat-deck ladder. He stopped in consternation, gazing about him. Spindrift hazed across the deck. The ship, as she plunged, seemed to sink beneath him; giant waves towered against the black sky. A sea crashed over amidships with a terrible bellowing roar. Tod clung to the ladder with the coffee-pot swinging in his hand. Salt water swirled and hissed about him. It was in his eyes, his nose, his mouth. Masses of sea foam, cold and clammy, darted abcut his feet.

Was the Araby sinking? Would she weather this storm? Tod waited, expecting to hear a call for all hands on deck. Nothing happened. The wind continued to scream through the rigging; the ship rose gallantly on the waves, plunged on through the night. The boy sighed. Well, he'd get used to this, he supposed. Evidently there was nothing to worry about.

He hoped another wave like that last one wouldn't hit her just now. If it did—he'd surely be washed overboard. And on such a night as this, what chance did a man have lost in that dark and heaving obscurity? None. The slanting deck sent him lurching up two steps of the companion. There he paused, amazed, unmindful of the biting wind that stung his face.

The black figures of two men blocked his way. Tod discerned white sweat rags round their necks.

"Who's that?" yelled a voice above the whine of the gale.

"The mess boy," Tod shrieked in reply. "I'm taking coffee up to the bridge."

"Drat those officers," went on the voice. "I wish they'd—have to shovel coal—with me down in the stokehole."

"Are you—a fireman?"

"Yep. Just came up the fiddley—to get a breath of fresh air. Now, you'd never guess it was hot as hell down there, would you?"

"Phew! That was a bad comber," said another voice. "Ain't I right now? A bad 'un—that was!"

Tod grasped the icy hand rail as a heavy sea rolled over the starboard bow and fell crashing into the waist. The Araby shuddered beneath the shock. The dull thunder of the seas was like the mighty booming of a drum. At the next lull in the wind, he went upward, past the stokers, to the boat deck. There another companionway led up to the bridge.

At the top Tod paused, one numb hand gripping a rail stanchion for support, the other holding the coffee-pot. Mr. Burton, the young third mate, whom Tod had hardly glimpsed since the evening in port when he had given Tod his orders, stood in the lee of the weather cloth, his figure swathed in an oilskin coat. "Java?" he queried; "that's thoughtful of the skipper. Thanks."

He stood with his black rubber boots planted wide apart, drinking the hot fluid. Beneath the brim of his dripping sou'wester, his eyes glowed keenly. Tod glanced round. In the wheel house the grizzled quartermaster at the helm steered with both hands gripping the spokes; his unshaven cheeks stood out in the oval glow of the binnacle light.

"Dirty weather," commented the third mate heartily. "But it was worse than this—one passage I made on the Panama."

At the word, Tod twisted about till he faced the man. He tried to keep the eagerness from his voice as he asked: "You were on the Panama, Mr. Burton?"

The third mate raised his voice above a sudden whistle of the wind. "Yes, a year ago. Better ship than this."

"Did you know the purser—Neil Moran?"

The third mate grasped the rail and walked up the slant to the shelter of the weather cloth. "Sure I knew him," he called. "Jolly chap, too."

Tod passed the wheel house windows in short quick steps. In the green glow of the starboard light he stopped. "Do you know what became of him, Mr. Burton?" he cried. "He was a—a—friend of mine."

The kindly face of the youthful third officer stared out into the darkness. "No, you see I left the Panama about a year ago. I heard that Moran got into trouble. Don't know why, I'm sure. Ask Mr. Hawkes. He ought to know. He went out with her on the last trip."

Tod tried to quell the disappointment that leapt into his consciousness. Ask Mr. Hawkes. Make a friend of Mr. Hawkes. Yes, it sounded so easy, so simple.

His bitter meditations were interrupted by the third mate speaking at the wheel-house window. "She seems to be riding easier, quartermaster."

"Aye, sir. She does," replied the man at the wheel.

Mr. Burton walked the length of the bridge, then turned back to Tod. "What is your name, boy?" he abruptly asked.

"Tod Moran, sir."

66

"Ah—then Neil is a relation?"

Tod nodded in the gloom.

The third mate contemplated the boy with deep thoughtfulness. "You don't believe that story about him? No, of course not. Well—neither do I. Look here, now, you'd better keep quiet on this tramp." He stopped short, and his gaze went to the ladder. "Hush. The Old Man."

In the darkness Tod saw Captain Ramsey, his cap low over his eyes, climb to the bridge. "A dirty night," he remarked, turning up his coat collar. "How far has she logged since noon, Mr. Burton?"

"Ninety-two miles, sir."

"Not so bad," the master conceded in a thick slow voice. "No, not so bad for an old tin can like this." He peered over the canvas wind-dodger into the night. "Mr. Burton," he called, "better tell the chief engineer to keep her down to sixty revolutions. If the gale gets worse—I'll be on the settee in the chart room."

The captain lurched up the slanting deck and disappeared down the companion steps toward the chart room under the bridge. Tod picked up his coffee-pot. He paused as he became aware that another wave had crashed into the waist of the ship. The steamer quivered under the impact of the blow. He grasped a rail stanchion and peered down into the moving blackness. Stinging salt spray filled his eyes. Then, above the furious clamour of the night, he heard a voice, small and distant, shouting.

Tod strained his eyes into the darkness. The third mate muttered at his elbow: "What's that? It can't be!"

Again came the cry. Tod started. His hands closed on the rail in a vise-like grip. High above the exultant scream of the gale a voice sang out the dreaded words:

"Man overboard!"

CHAPTER VII THE LIFEBOAT

MAN overboard!" The words electrified the third mate into action. "Which side?" he shouted.

The lookout's cry came back on the wind: "Port."

"Hard a-starboard, quartermaster!" the third mate ordered. Already he had sprung to the engine-room telegraph. The indicator curved to the word: Stop.

"Quartermaster, put the helm down hard. Moran, call the cap'n—quick!"

Tod, dropping the coffee-pot, slid down the companion to the chart room. "Captain Ramsay! Captain Ramsey, man overboard!" He dragged at the door with all his weight, bracing himself against the wind that fought like an enemy to keep it closed.