Tod set his tray on the table and faced the mate across it. "It can't be, Mr. Hawkes. You knew him. What happened?"
"What happened? Don't ye know?" The man leaned forward; his short hairy hands gripped each other. "He stole the ship's money, slipped his cable at Marseilles—cleared for ports unknown."
"At Marseilles? I thought it was Bordeaux."
"Oh, you've heard things, then. Who told you all this?"
Tod's mind flashed back to San Francisco. Should he tell? How much did Hawkes know? Well, he couldn't make things any worse now. His voice, when he spoke, was strange to him, and thin. "I saw the manager in his office."
"Oh, ye did!" The mate surveyed the boy with a perplexed frown. "And what did he say?"
"He was very kind," said Tod, with rising colour. "He told me all he knew. But it is hard, isn't it, to believe that of your brother?"
"H—m! Yes, I s'pose it is." He looked up quickly. "And did Swickard know that ye'd signed aboard this boat?"
"Why—I'm not certain he did. I told him I needed a job badly, though, now that Neil sent nothing to help me at school. The first place I thought of was the European-Pacific Line."
"H—m! Looks kind o' bad for both o' yez, don't it?" Mr. Hawkes showed his dark uneven teeth in a grim smile. "Well, ye can get some good experience on this here ship. How'd ye git along with the cook?"
"Pretty fair."
A hearty guffaw greeted the words. "Oh, that cook! He'll make a steward out o' ye yet."
"Yes, sir." Tod picked up his tray. As he left he was aware that the mate's black eyes were following him with a glance as bright and hard as steel.
When he entered the port alleyway, the hot breath of the galley struck him like the opening of a furnace door. The Tattooed Man, clad only in short rolled pants, was going calmly from shelf to range, from range to bin, opening cans, turning meat, chopping carrots. His great torso glistened with sweat; the dragons on his chest might have just risen from a magic pool.
"Joe Macaroni," said the cook, "go up and trim the ventilators to the wind. It's gettin' as hot as though we was crossin' the Line."
Getting hot! Was worse to come ? He climbed the companion, wondering if the cook also had heard of his quarrel with Red Mitchell. Did he know of Neil? Probably not. Just how close an acquaintanceship existed between the cook and the first mate, Tod could not determine. The boy set about his work in the galley with scarcely a word, scarcely a glance toward the man. His mind was busy with thoughts of Neil, of Hawkes, of Red. Whispers of the coming fight were circulating over the ship; at the first opportunity it was to take place in the forecastle. Tod sighed. Each day the obstacles were piling up higher before him; each day his goal receded to a more distant point.
As the sun rose toward the zenith, the heat grew more intense. Tod drooped at his monotonous duties. Was this the life at sea he had dreamed of, the life of a gentleman adventurer? He glanced about him with new eyes. Dirty pots and pans in the trough; a leaky drain below; empty tomato cans on the floor. Odours of salt pork and cabbage. Always cabbage! He smiled wanly to himself. Where were his glorious dreams of high adventure? They had slipped astern with the days—and reality, cruel, malignant, held him in its iron grip. He had discovered the disillusioning fact that even the beautiful deep-sea ships had a commonplace existence, that it was only when seen by firelight upon an enchanted sea of the mind that they appeared romantic.
All morning the old freighter remained quiet on the metallic surface of the sea. The sun poured its scorching rays down pitilessly on the decks. At four bells of the afternoon watch—two o'clock—the boatswain stuck his head into the galley door and announced that the ship wouldn't get under way before night. The Old Man had given the crew leave to swim; so they had brought the gig to the port bow and lowered the Jacob's ladder to it.
"Heigho!" said the cook, with a grin. "That's the stuff. A bath'll do the fo'c's'le good."
"Yes; but how about the sharks?" commented the boatswain, with his solemn, owl-like eyes staring down the alleyway. "The shark won't leave the ship, now that the cap'n is a-takin' the stoker's body to Panama, and they don't bury a man Christian-like there in the Zone: they burns 'em."
"Aw, sharks won't touch a man—if he's a good swimmer."
The boatswain sighed. "They will if they're hungry. And this fellow is. He's been waitin' a week fer a feed."
"All right, bose. Thanks. We may try him out anyway." The cook smiled at the man's departing back. "A swim's just th' thing for us, Joe Macaroni; though we've been swimming all morning here in the galley."
Tod, presently crossing the forward deck to the port bulwarks where the men were making merry, hesitated a second as he saw upon the forecastle head the stocky form of the first mate in low converse with Red Mitchell. Did he imagine that their eyes turned his way, that they stopped talking when he appeared? The mate passed the winch to the rail and, leaning over, watched the men. Red Mitchell came down the ladder to join the group at the bulwarks.
The boy found a place next to Swede Jorgenson, who was tranquilly viewing the men below as they dove from the gig and swam in circles near the vessel. "Aren't you swimming, Swede?" Tod asked.
"Me ? No; I didn't never learn how," answered the big seaman. "I don't like water."
"Humph!" grunted Toppy as he balanced his skinny, dripping body on the bulwarks. "It takes th' blasted cook t' swim on this bloomin' tin can. Lookit 'im now!"
"Yah, he dives like a seal off a rock," said Red Mitchell, taking off his clothes, consisting of shirt and dungarees.
"A seal?" grinned Toppy. "Like a bally painted whale, yer mean."
Leaning overside, Tod glimpsed the cook's stalwart form cleaving the waters with long regular strokes of his arms and legs. Near him other naked forms were scattering sparks of diamonds on the placid surface of the sea. In the captain's gig, directly below Red, several white figures crouched on their gleaming haunches.
"Goin' in, kid?" asked Toppy.
"Sure!" Tod began to divest himself of his clothing, dropping it in a pile on the deck.
"I'll beat yer! Cheerio, old top!" Toppy was gone in a flying dive overside. The sound of a splash drifted up with the yells of the men.
Tod stood poised for a minute on the bulwarks abaft the gig. The intense sunlight hurt his eyes; the deck quivered in the heat. He felt the soft stir of the air about his body. Twenty feet below was the clear blue water breaking in tiny rivulets against the plates of the side.
"Watch out, kid," drawled Jorgenson. "Don't come up under the hull, or the shark'll git yuh."
"Look out below!" called Tod, laughing. Raising his hands to each side, he slowly brought them forward full length, and on tiptoe let himself drop into space. The water plunged toward him, struck. He was racing through the cooling depths of the sea, the water caressing his body. A half dozen flying fish swayed by toward the shadow of the ship. Far above shone a dim azure light. He lifted his head and with a strong stroke, shot himself upward.
Fresh air rushed into his lungs. Treading water, he brushed the hair from his eyes and looked about. Before him lay a glittering expanse of trembling water. The hot hazy sky dipped down to a horizon impossibly near.
"Some dive, Joe Macaroni." Jarvis, swimming up beside him, stopped and trod water. Drops trickled from his hair to the high cheek bones of his face. He grinned in delight. "Got plenty of wind? Then let's swim out a bit. I want t' talk to you."
Behind them they heard the cries of the men. "Hey, Red, don't let the dogfish git yuh! Say, Toppy, 'ave yer got rid o' the cooties?"