The Araby. They had run her upon a reef, wounded her, and now they were deserting. Alone she would sink into those greedy seas. These decks which he had trod, these decks which had become his home, almost a part of himself, would slide into the black depths of a tropic sea. There, below, they would lie submerged, with strange monsters swimming about them, strange seaweeds waving along their planks.
He felt the boat lowered; he heard the whine of ropes through the falls. They dropped on a sullen swell, rolling gently. Whispering voices murmured about him. Oars strained in the rowlocks. He looked up at the black outline of the ship.
Her bows lay high on the reef; her stern sank toward the sea. High aloft on the foremast a white light gleamed among the stars; and lower down on, the navigation bridge the port light shone wanly like a bloodshot eye. As he watched, the distance slowly widened. Silence enshrouded them. The ship dissolved in the night, with only those lights left gleaming amid the stars.
"Listen!"
A dull thudding noise like an explosion washed toward them.
"She's going!" screamed a voice.
"What's that?" cried Hawkes. "Blast me, if we didn't forget the dago! He's locked in the brig."
Tod quivered. He seemed of a sudden to leap awake. His hands clenched; the nails dug into his palms. A sound drifted toward him across the water —the muted wail of Tony the Wop lifting his voice to Heaven.
Tod Moran, in sudden terror, put out his hand and clutched Jarvis's arm. "Where's Neil?" he whispered. Neil! . . ."
Jarvis answered in a low tone. "Your brother is on the Araby."
"On the Araby!" The words were almost an echo.
The man leaned toward him. "Quiet, Joe Macaroni ! Neil is doing a man's work. . . . This time we're not going to let our ship go down."
CHAPTER VI
'I TAKE COMMAND, MR. HAWKES"
SHIP your oars, boys," said Mr. Hawkes gruffly, from the stern sheets. "We'll stand by till she goes down."
The lifeboat, adrift under strange stars, lost headway. Silence enveloped them. Tod Moran, gazing aft, saw that the lights of the Araby still shone dimly perhaps two hundred yards distant. To the north a dark thin line of shore was vaguely visible, one of the innumerable islands, probably, which thrust their heads up through the Caribbean. To the south, two wavering lights approached across the gentle swells. They were, he knew, the other lifeboats. A moment later a call came faintly across the starlit water.
Hawkes rose and sent a stentorian voice toward them. "Turn and make back on our course for San Martin. We'll follow as soon as she goes down."
"Very good, sir," came the reply.
"How's the skipper?" shouted the first mate.
"Sleepin' in the bottom. Dead to the world."
Hawkes laughed deeply in his beard. Tod saw the two lights turn and progress slowly toward the east.
Jarvis, sitting with his oar shipped in his hand, bent down and whispered, "Take this flash, Joe Macaroni. Turn it on Hawkes when I nudge you." Unperceived in the darkness, he slipped the youth an electric torch.
Pondering, Tod held it on his knee, with the round glass pointed toward the stern of the boat. What plan of action was Jarvis contemplating? Was he waiting until the other boats were out of reach, when he might deal with the first mate alone? In the seat at the stern, on each side of Hawkes, sat Red Mitchell and the second engineer. Upon those two only did he believe Mr. Hawkes could absolutely rely. Tod looked round. Among the firemen and seamen behind him he made out Toppy and Jorgenson, both on their side probably. He knew that the twelve other men in the boat were anything but friendly toward the mate; and he also knew that, since the night when the stoker had been dragged from the sea, Tom Jarvis held no small place in their estimation.
Yet, did they dare mutiny? For to take the Araby into their own hands would be little less than that. And there was Mr. Burton, whose voice he heard behind him in the stem of the boat. Where did the young third mate stand? True, he had no love for the captain and mate; and yet, would he not do his duty and stand by his superior officers? As Tod glanced questioningly at the huge figure of the Tattooed Man at his side, he sensed in his attitude an air of confident poise. Doubtless, Jarvis had planned this moment for months; yet was not Hawkes a man to reckon with every eventuality?
A startled cry from the stern sheets focussed his attention upon the lights of the Araby. Low on the water, so low that he believed the light must be on a lowered accommodation ladder, a lantern was swinging back and forth.
"Tony's got loose. Ain't I right, now?" muttered Red Mitchell. "He wants us t' come back and save 'is little 'ide." He laughed shrilly, an apparent note of hysteria in his voice.
"Well, we ain't," snapped Hawkes. "It ain't safe. The blasted tub'll be goin' down any minute now."
Tod felt the man at his side quietly stir. "I hardly think she will, Mr. Hawkes," said Jarvis softly.
The words struck the lifeboat into puzzled silence. The men leaned forward, expectant.
"What d'yer mean, Mr. Jarvis?" blurted the mate.
"I mean," said the Tattooed Man in a low repressed tone, "that now I take command, Mr. Hawkes."
The three men in the stern sat motionless. Tod felt a sudden movement at his side. He pressed his finger on the electric torch. A cone of light leaped through the darkness. Between the startled faces of Red Mitchell and the second engineer the bearded countenance of Mr. Hawkes flushed crimson.
"Don't move, Hawkes!" cried Jarvis sharply. "Leave that gun alone. I have you covered."
"Blimey," rasped a voice behind the youth, "didn't I say that Tattooed Man wasn't any bloomin' cookl"
In the stern sheets Red Mitchell raised his voice in a curse. "Jerry, you fool, you've been double-crossed!"
Tod saw Mr. Hawkes's right hand itch at his knee. "Cut out this play stuff," he snarled, a rising note of defiance in his voice. "The men won't stand for ye goin' against yer officers."
Jarvis leaned intently forward. In his hand gleamed an automatic. "I think they'll go with me, Hawkes, when they hear what I have to say." He motioned over his shoulder. "Burton, get their weapons!"
In surprise Tod saw the third mate step over the thwarts. As he crossed to the stern sheets, Mr. Hawkes thrust his beard forward with a menacing movement. "That young whelp with ye, too?"
Jarvis raised his automatic. With a muttered curse, Mr. Hawkes relapsed into silence. Coolly yet swiftly the third mate felt for the weapons. "I have them, sir," he announced, turning to Jarvis.
Someone behind Tod laughed shrilly.
Mr. Hawkes's beaked nose curved over his lips. "D'ye know what this means?" he snarled. "When we reaches port, ye'll both be tried for mutiny."
"I think not, Mr. Hawkes," returned Burton as he seated himself on the gunwale.
"Keep the three of them covered, Burton," went on Jarvis, unperturbed. "Now I've got something to say to these men." His eyes roved round the boat.
Hawkes leaned forward. The scar on his temple flamed red against his sombre brows. "Who are you?" he whispered gruffly. "You ain't no cook."
Jarvis answered in a low vibrant tone. "I'm the former master of the Annie Jamison. Do you remember the cargo carrier that the Jamison Line sent to the bottom in the Columbia River two years ago?"