Slowly the door opened. Tod stumbled across the brass-shod storm step. "Cap'n—man overboard!"
The commander of the Araby rose sleepily from a couch and switched on the electric globes in the deck head. "What's that? Overboard?" He swore beneath his breath.
He yawned, stretched, swayed slightly, and reached for his cap. "Rotten luck," he growled, "on a night like this." He glanced at a chronometer on the wall, and Tod saw that the hands pointed to eleven o'clock.
Abruptly the captain lifted his head. Tod became aware that the faint pulsating tremor of the ship's propeller had ceased. So used to that regular vibration had he become that this cessation seemed to leave a void in his little world. He was appalled. The great iron heart of the Araby had stopped beating.
Captain Ramsey jammed the cap over his eyes. "What's that young rascal Burton doing?" he snapped. "Stopping her?"
"He's bringing her about," Tod exclaimed. "Putting out a boat, I guess—"
"Manning a boat? Where'd he get the orders, I'd like to know. Hawkes told me I'd have to watch that young feller. I'm the cap'n of this ship, I'll let him know." A gust of wind whirled into the room as he opened the door.
Once more on the bridge, Tod hung over the rail. He could see the door of the two forecastles open and the men streaming up on deck. Behind him Captain Ramsey was shouting at his third officer.
"Who was it, I ask you?"
"A fireman, sir. He was sitting on the ladder. A big sea—it got him. Red Mitchell gave the alarm. The bo'sun threw over two life buoys."
"Humph. A stoker. Who told you to stop the engines for a stokehole rat?"
The third mate's voice was hoarse with anger and amazement. "I didn't want the man cut by the propeller, sir."
"Oh, yuh didn't." The captain grasped the bridge rail as the ship wallowed in the trough of the sea. "Don't you know that the ship won't have steerage way? Telegraph slow ahead, Mr. Burton."
"Very good, sir." Reluctantly, the third mate crossed to the engine-room telegraph and swung up the indicator. Almost immediately, Tod felt the regular rhythm of the ship's propeller.
He peered down from the height. His heart thumped madly. Out in that black sea a man was tossing, clinging, perhaps, to a life buoy, lost in the heaving fury of the waves. Would he be saved? Was he lifting brine-filled eyes toward the lights of the ship, his ship that was now slowly moving away from him? And he, Tod Moran, had spoken to him there in the blackness of the bridge ladder. He had been only a shadow, a voice in the night; and now he was gone. He was being left behind. His cries for help were drowned by the gale. Tod shuddered and, with his face distraught with hatred, turned to the captain.
That man was shouting angrily at the third mate. "Oh, you ordered a boat got ready, did you?"
"Yes, Captain. The port whaleboat. But I told the bo'sun not to cast adrift until you came, sir."
Captain Ramsey laughed deep in his throat. "Well, I'll see that no more men are lost to-night." He spun about and descended the companion to the boat deck. Tod went carefully after him.
On the boat deck in the pale gleam of a searchlight a little group of men stood by the port whaleboat which swung on its davits, cover off. Tod stumbled to a sheltered spot abaft the warm funnel, where he gripped the handles of a cabin ventilator. He saw the thick form of the first mate standing against the inboard gunwale of the lifeboat.
"This is murder, Cap'n," Mr. Hawkes protested in a loud voice. "Ye can't keep no boat afloat in this sea."
"I know it, Mr. Hawkes. Put her back in the chocks, men."
"Yeh, that's better," commented Red Mitchell with his whining accents. "The Old Man ain't got no business to send me out to-night. I ain't no sailor; I'm a fireman. Ain't I right, now?"
"I ain't goin' out in no bloomin' boat, either," blurted out a cockney voice. "Serves the blarsted fireman right."
"Yeah, I told the blamed fool to hold tight—and he didn't. Sitting right below me, he was."
"Shut up!" snapped the boatswain. "Who's askin' a coal-passer to go, anyway."
They set about covering the boat and lashing it to its cradle. Tod, clinging to the ventilator, heard a low murmur of discontent from the group of firemen who stood watching the scene. Suddenly, a tall figure loomed up beside him. It was the Tattooed Man.
"Cowards!" he said.
At his approach Captain Ramsey whirled. "What's that? The cook?"
"What're you doin' here, cooky?" laughed the first mate. "This ain't the galley."
The cook stepped forward into the full glare of the searchlight, and faced the officers of the Araby. Tod could hardly restrain a gasp of admiration. The man, now that he was out of the galley, seemed to have dropped the vestments of a cook. With his eyes glowing like burning coals, his mouth drawn into a straight line, and his fists clenched, he appeared every inch a seaman. His blue jeans bulged over his enormous thighs; his white singlet, taut across his deep chest, showed the quivering dragon heads near his thick neck and the gleaming stars on the great biceps of his arms.
"Captain Ramsey," he said, "you've never asked me about my past, and I've never told you. But I've not always been a cook." He paused and glanced round the little group of surprised seamen. "You say a boat can't live in this sea. Gut me, if I don't say it can I I've cast adrift on Skagerrack in a worse sea than this. Let me take out the boat. I'll ask for volunteers. We'll save that man."
A murmur of approbation went round the circle. But the mate cut it short. "What's got into him?" he growled to the captain. "Has he gone plumb crazy now? Who does he think is captain on this here steamer?"
Captain Ramsey's lips twitched nervously. "I've said we'll not take the risk. Yes, I'm captain here." He repeated the first mate's words as if he had need to justify his position.
"Look—the men are willing to go, sir," went on the Tattooed Man in his deep quick voice. "I heard that fellow scream when he went overboard. If you had heard! Let me go, sir! The gale's falling off."
"You'd never find him." The captain was relenting. His eyes searched the dark seas that beat outside the circle of light. "We should have had a Holmes light, Mr. Hawkes, then in this blackness we could make out his position."
"A Holmes light on the Araby?" Mr. Hawkes chuckled in his beard. "Yes, this is a great ship all right—where no one obeys the skipper." He said the last phrase softly with a glance from the corners of his eyes to see how the shot told. "Why don't the cook go back to the galley—where he belongs?"
The wavering captain of the Araby bit his lip. Crimson crept up his cheeks. His glance, straying across the group of firemen, settled upon the first mate. "Hawkes," he scowled, "you forget yourself. Perhaps the cook is also a—a man."
Tod stared. What had happened? Had the commander that lay submerged in the depths of his weak nature come to the surface? The boy wondered as he perceived Captain Ramsey draw his frail lean body erect. The gray eyes glowed somberly in his pallid face; his voice grew deeper, fuller.
"Very well, Mr. Jarvis. The boat is yours."
The wind, whistling through the rigging, carried aft the reply of the Tattooed Man. "Volunteers!" he boomed. "Volunteers to go in the boat!"
A sigh went up from the waiting men. Swaying to meet the roll of the ship, they looked hopefully across the wind-swept deck.
"Step forward, boys!" cried the boatswain. "Of course we go."
Above the drumming of the seas came Swede Jorgenson's voice: "Yah, we go."
"Blimey, I'm goin' too!"