University of San Francisco - USF Don Yearbook (San Francisco, CA)

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THE DERELICT 25 “North by west, sir.” “Bring her west by south. Run up the staysails, men.” Each man sprang forward to do his duty. The wind caught the big body of the Swede and for a time he could make no headway. Then he stopped. Every moment counted. The sail was loosed. “We can do by ourselves”, sang out a melodious voice. “Pull.” In desperation the men obeyed. What strength there was in those arms no one had suspected. The sail rose, up—halfway—yes; they would make it, though the biting cold ate into their muscles, and the snow that had begun to fall made their foothold less secure. Would the ropes hold? IIow they tugged and strained! Hold? As if the storm had hitherto been toying with them, now it bore down upon them with all its fury; the sails disappeared into the cloud of driving snow over the lee rail, as a sudden blast blew them to shreds. In a blinding swirl of snow, the green seas were charging over the weather rail and spilling out of the lee scuppers, while the icy waves snarled round the seamen’s legs. Every one from the mate down was mustered to rig preventer stays to the bowsprit. The helmsman lashed his wheel to bear a hand. The cook was sent out on the bowsprit with the rest to assist in hitching a heavy hawser around the end of a spar. At this moment, as if rejoicing to have trapped them, the sea lifted itself up in a mountainous, seething wall to windward, and having gathered in itself the fury of a hundred waves, it swept down with a hideous roar and crashed headlong on the ship. “Hang on!” bellowed the captain. “Hang on!” “Hang on to what?” The cry was the cry of instinctive desire,—not of reason. The sea in hoarse merriment laughed outright. Those men might have been flies, so easily did it do its work. One alone by the steel-like tenacity of his grip and his more than human agility in avoiding the brunt of the wave remained, one dark and dripping object clinging desperately to a bobstay. Perhaps, too, the demons of the

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24 THE I ON ATI AX told them. They laughed in return. ‘Just the man we want’, they said. ‘We want an American merely for appearance’ sake. We’ll do the business. You sign papers and draw your salary.’ They did the business and me in the bargain. They ruined the bank and pocketed the profits. Hundreds of poor Dagos lost their all. The revolutionary funds of the Carbonari vanished into air. Imagine a hornet’s nest. One of the directors called on me. ‘You better skeep’, he said, ‘tonight.’ ‘I’ll stay’, I replied. ‘Yes’, he said with a broad smile, ‘if the Carbonari catch, you stay.’ You know now why I would never ship a Dago.” The mate looked grave. “Have they ever made an attempt?” he asked. “More than once”, the captain replied, “the last time in Calcutta. One of the assailants was of the very build of that Dago yonder, but his beard was thick and bushy. If that fellow had a beard, I’d say he was the same. Beards can be shaved.” The distant sail no longer interested the Italian. The workings of his heart were no longer reflected in his face. lie rose, stretched himself, turned and quietly went his way, respectfully saluting captain and mate as he passed them, the model seaman of the Lady Louise. III. It was a gray, stormy afternoon of late December. The Callao-bound bark, Lady Louise, with decks awash, was laboring in the throes of a cold Antarctic storm. With every spar bending, and the rigging shrieking in the gale, the little craft struggled on, now poised atop of a green mountain of water, now scudding down long, sullen slopes that seemed half a mile in length, to disappear seemingly lost in the valley beneath. Captain Bellnay and the mate scanned the horizon with anxious eyes. Suddenly the sharp voice of the captain was heard above the storm. “How’s the course, helm?”

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2G THE IGNAT I AN sea had touched him more lightly as they swept over the demons in his heart. It was the Italian. The captain, too. had escaped, as if by a miracle. “All but one,” he groaned, “all gone but one, the hoodoo of the ship.” It was no easy matter for the Italian to gain the deck, for the ship was plunging and tossing in the wake of the fearful wave. Vet a smile lit up his face; the memory of his wrongs lied to him, he had been spared that he might do justice. “Stay forrard, there”, yelled the half-crazed captain. The roaring of the storm must have drowned his voice. The man was advancing. From his breast the captain drew his pistol and pointed it. The Italian saw the act, and stopped by the side of a mass of wreckage. A sharp report rang out in the lull of the storm as the vessel dipped. The Italian placed his hand on his breast, staggered, and disappeared from view. The captain’s heart smote him, but the deed was done. What proof had he of the guilt of the Italian? None. lie had perhaps slain an innocent man. Disgusted with himself he turned away. He could not bring himself to view the body. Had he sought to do so. he would have been astonished to find that the corpse had disappeared. The shot had gone wild; the Italian had acted his part well. Unharmed he had squirmed to a place of safety. The storm was gradually abating, and the bark was rolling more easily in the trough of the sea. Away to the westward the declining sun broke triumphantly through a barrier of clouds and cast long, slanting rays over the restless ocean. Soon darkness fell, and Captain Bcllnay began making preparations for the night. First lie descended to the lockers, opened one and scattered its contents,—signal flags—on the floor. Selecting the three marked K. G. and P. he proceeded to the deck and ran the flags up to the truck in the order