The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, January 14, 1906, Page 5

THE SAN FRANCISCO SUNDAY CALL. i you want T a3 2222000 020 something that » story published to-day 3 —Fortunes Adrift — is the scventh of a series of thrill- ing sea stories by Outliffe fz Hyme detailing “The Ad- 3¢ ventures of Capialn Kettle.” 3 8 don’t warm out every-day mis, periences One complete story of adven- ture will appear in The Sunday of the dead level commonplacene: s these stirring e of Captain Kett every Call series is finished. Eisusossins Copyright by Cutclif the blood and lift =3 week & until the OO0 0L 0 00000 L L0000 e 2O & good deal harge of th and 1 th of th Indian M: 1 on e island ng to n wg little to see m fancy to the wighed at of McTodd,” that d city of ngland and as his idea that tt se Perim he Red Orean andeb, board he that ruffian ore of sald are enough to discour- aid Kettle, “and the heat 4 sour the temper sened a couple mory as and bared his the even here, d what heat was deserts. There's a that’s certain.” zle-headed mate of an e but- chest. and I out in torna- said Kettle, thrust = o I b Nl I-~-mu|l!|| aullill i 1T \JAS POJJIBLE TO SET VLY VO\/H THE WINV - 0= down a purple face rrom the head of the ge ladder—"Aye,.aye?” 3 1 the awnings off her,” the ship- aaster ordered. “‘Put extra grips on the boats and see everything lasifed fast that a steam crane could move. We're in for a bad breeze directly.” “Aye, aye,” rumbled the mate, and he clapped a lsaden whistle to his mouth and blew it shrilly. A minute later he report- ed: “A big steamer lying to just a point or two off the starboard bow, captain. I haven't seen her before because of the haze.” He examined her carefully through the bridge bineculars and gave his obser- vations with heavy deliberation. “She's square-rigged for'ard, and has a black furnel with a red band—no, two red bands. Seems to me like one of the Ger- man mail boats, and I should say she was broke down. Captain Kettle rose springily from his deck chair, and swung himself on the upper deck bridge. Cortolvin followed. A mist of heat shut the sea In a narrow ring. Ovearhead wasa heavy, purply darkness, impenetrable as a ceiling of brick, The only light that crept in came from the mysterious unseen plain of the horizon. From every point of the com- pass uneasy thunder gave forth now and then a stified bellow, and, though the lightning splashes never showed, sudden thinning of the gloom would hint at their nearness. The air shimmered and danced with the baking heat, and though lurid grays and pink predominated, the glow which filled it was constantly changing in hue. The scerie was terrifying, but Kettle regarded it with a satisfied smile. The one commercial prayer of the shipmaster is to meet with a passenger steamer at sea, broken down, and requiring a tow: and here was one of the plums of the 2 7 wy 182 S “ il 1 il l '1 [ / [’i nrr‘" il | i u | | i ‘I N ocean ready to his hand and anxlous to be plucked. The worse the weather, the greater would be the salvage, and Captain Kettle could have hugged himself with joy when he thought of the tropical hur- ricane’s nearness, He had changed the Saigon's course the instant he came on the bridge, and had pulled the siren string and hooted cheerfully into the throbbing air to ap- nounce his coming. The spectral steam- er grew every moment more clear, and presently a string of barbaric colors jerked up to the wire span between her masts. make the flags blow out: they hung in dejected cowls; but to Kettle they read like the page of an open book. “Urgent signal H, B.!" he crled, and clapped the binocular back in the box and snapped down the ld. “H. B, Mr. Cortolvin, and don’t you forget having seen it. ‘Want immediate assistance,” that means.” ‘“You seem to know it by heart,” sald Cortalvin. “There’s not a steamboat officer on all the seas that doesn't. When things are down with us, we take out the signal book, and hun{ up H. B. among the urgent signals, and’ tell ourselves that some day we may come across a Cunar- der with a broken tallshaft,’and be able to give up the sea and be living tely on £200 a year well invested, within the fortnight. It's the steamboat officer's i There was no breath of wind to iy ( S s, N’; Cop htluwm-w“‘ £ ol ) 7 {2 dream, sir, but there’s few of us it ever comes true for.” “Skipper,” sald Cortolyin, “I needn’t tell you how pleased I'll be if you come into a competency over this business. In the meanwhile, If there’s anything I can do, from coal trh:x;ng upward, I'm your: most obedlent s & “I thank you, sir,” sald Ksttls. *“And if you'd go and carry the news to the chief I'll be obliged. I know he'll say his engines can't hold out. Tell him they must. Tell \him to use up anything he has sooner than get another breakdown. Tell him to rip up his soul for struts and backstays if he thinks {t'll keep them running. It's the one chance of my life, Mr. Cortolvin, and the one chance of his, and he's got to know it and see we aren't robbed of what is put before us. Show him where the siller comes in, sir, and then stand by and you'll ses Mr. McTodd work miracles.” Cortolvin went below, and Kettle turned to the old mate. “Mr. Murgat- royd,” sald he, “get a dozen hands to rouse up that new manila out of the store. 1 take you from the foredeck and give you the ltterdgek to -yourself. T'll have to bargain with that fellow over there before we do anything, and there’ll be little enough time left after we've fixed upon prices. So have everything ready to begin to tow. We'll use their- wire.” “Aye, aye,” sald the mate. *“But it N 2 (A »a Zr! won't do to tow with wire, captaln, shrough what's coming. There's no glve in wire. A wire hawser would jerk the Buts out of her in fifteen minutes. Kettle tightened his lips. “Mr. Mur- gatroyd,” said he, “I am not a blame fool. Neither do I want dictation from my officers. I told you to rouse up the manila. You will back the wire with & do bridle of that.” ye, aye” grunted the mate; “but what am I to make fast to? Them bol- lards aft might be stepped in putty for all the use they are. They'd not tow a rowboat through what's coming. I believe they'd draw If they'd a fishing line made fast to .them.” “I should have thought you'd been long enough at sea to have known your business by this time,” sald Kettle un- pleasantly. ‘“D'ye think that ,every steamboat that trades is a brand-new ‘Harland and Wolff?' " “Well,” sald the mate sullenly, “I'm waiting to be taught.” “Pass the manila round the coaming of the after hatch, and you won't come and tell me that's drawn while this steamboat stays on the water top.” “Aye, aye, sald the mate, stepped into his slippers and away. Captain Kettle walked briskly to the center of the upper bridge and lald a hand on the telegraph. lle gave crisp orders to the Lascar at the wheel and the Saigon moved -in perfect obedi- ence to his, will Ahead of him the great slate-colored liner lay motéonless on the olly sea. Her rail was peopled with the anxious faces of passengers. Busy deckhands were stripping away the awnings. On the high upper bridge were three offi- cers in peaked caps and trim uniforms of white drill, talking together anx- lously, The little Saigon curved up from astern, stopped her engines, and then, with reversed propeller, brbught wup dead, so that the of the two steamers were level and not more than twenty feet apart. It was asmartly done, and (as Kettle had Intended) the Germans noticed it and commented. Then began the barter of words. “Howdy, captain,” sald Kettle, "I hope it's not a funeral you've brought up for? This heat's been very great. Has it knocked over one of your pas- sengers?” ' A large-bearded man made reply: “We hat seen a slight mishap mit der ma- chinery, captain. My ingeneers wiil mend.” “‘Oh, that's all right. Though it might be worse. Well, I wish you luck, cap- tain. But I'd hurry and get steam on her again, if I were you. The breeze may come away any minute now, and you've the shore close aboard, and you'll be on it if you don't get your steam- boat under command again by then, and have a big loss of life. If you get on the beach it'll surprise me if you don't drown all hands.” 3 Captain Kettle put a hand on the tele- graph, as though to ring on his engines again, but the bearded German, after a preliminary stamp of passion, held up his hand for further parley. But for the moment the opportunity of speech was taken from him. The passengers were either English, or for the most part un- derstood that tongue when spoken; ana they had drunk in every word that was sald, as Kettle had intended: and now they surged in a writhing, yelling mob at the foot of the two bridge ladders, and demanded that assistance should be hired, let that cost what it might. There was no making a hall carry above that frightened uvbroar, and the German shipmaster raved, and explalned, and ‘reasoned for full a dozen moments be- * fore he quelled it.* Then, panting, he came once more to the end of his bridge, and addressed the other steamer. “Dose bassengers vas nervous,” sald he, “because dey thought dere might come some leetle rain squall; so I ask you how mooch vould you take my rope and tow me to Aden or Perim? “Phew!" sald Kettle. “Aden! That's wrong way for me, captain. Red Sea's where I've come from, and my owner cabled me to hurry and get to Zanibar.” *“Vell, how mooch?"” “We'll say £100,000, as your passen- #érs seem so anxious.” “Hondred tousand teufels! Herr Gott, I haf not Rhodes on der sheep!” “Well, captain, take the offer or leave it. I'm pot a towboat and I'm in a hurry to make my passage. If you keep me waiting here five minutes longer 1t'll cost you £120,000 to be plucked in anywhere.” The shipmaster on the other bridge went into a frenzy of expostulation; he appefiled to all Captain Kettle’s better feelings; he dared him to do his worst; he prayed him to do his best. But Kettle gazed upon the man’s gesticulating arms and listened to his frantic oratory un- moved. He lit a cheroot and leaned his elbows on the white railing of the bridge and did not reply by so much as a single word. ‘When the other halted through breath- lessness, even then he did not speak. He waved his hand toward the fearsome heavens, with their lurid lights, and pointed to the bumping thunder, which made both steamers vaguely tremble, and he let those argue for him. The clamor of the passengers rose again In the breathless, baking air and the captain of the liner had to yleld. He threw up his arms In* token of surrender; and a hush fell upon the scene llke the silence of death. > “My gompany shall pay you hondred tousand pound, captain, und—you haf der satisfaction dot you make me ruined man.” “I have been ruined myself,” sald Ket- tle, “heaps of times, and my turn for the other thing seems. to come now. I'll run down closer to you, captaln, or do you bid your hands heave me a line from the fo’c’'s'le head as I come past. You've cut it pretty fine. You've no time left to get a boat In the water. The wind may come away any moment now."” Captain Kettle was changing inte an- other man. All the Insouciance had gone from him. He gave his orders with crisp- ness and decision, and the.mates and the Lascars jumped to obey them. The horri- ble danger that was to come lay as an open advertisement, and they knew that thelr only way to pass safely through it— and even then the chances wers slim— was to obey the man who commanded them to the uttermost tittle. The connection between the steamers had been made, the snaky steel wire hawser had been hauled In through a stern fair-lead by the Salgon's winch, and the old mate stoed ready with the shackle which would link it on the ma- nila. The heavens ylelded up an overture like the echo of a Titian's groan. “Hur- ry there, you slow-footed dogs!” came Kettle's voice from ¥he bridge. The Lascars brought up the eye of the hawser, and Murgatroyd threaded it on the pin the shackle. Then h cried, “All fast,” and picked up a spike and screwed home the pin in its socket. Already the engines were on the move again, and the Salgon was steaming ahead on the tow line. It was a time for hurry. ° The alr thickened and grew for the moment if anything more hot, and the tornado raced down upon them as a black wall stretching far across the sea, with white wate® gleaming and churning at its foot. It hit the steam- ers like a solld avalanche, and the spindrift in it cut the faces of the men who trled to withstand it, as though whips jad lashed them. The coolle ermaster clung on to the Saigon’s wheel spokes, a mere wisp of 1imp humanity, incapable of steering or of doing anything else that required a modicum of rational thought. The little steamer fell away before the blast like a shaving in a dry street; the tonnage of the tornado heeled her till her lee scuppers spouted greem water inboard; and she might well have been overturned at the very outset. But Ket- tle beat the helpless Lascar from his hold and spoked the wheel hard down; and the gines, working strongly, brought her round again in & wallow- ing circle to face the torrent of hurrie cane. She took filve minutes to make that recovery, and when she waa steaming on agaln, head to the thunderous gusts, the tale of what she had endured was written in easy lettering. On both fore and main decks the bulwarks were gona level with the covering boards; the raffle of crates, harnmess cases, gangplanks, and so on, that a small trader carries In view to the sky, had departed beyond the ken of man; and, indeed, those lower decks wers scoursd clean to the naked rusted iron. The port lifeboat hung sto from bent davits, and three of the coolle crew had been swept from life Into the grip of the eternal sea. Cortolvin fought his way up on to the upper bridge step by step against the frantie beating of the wind, and. without being bidden, relleved at the les spokes of the wheel. Captain Kettls nodded his thanks. The Salgon had no steam steer- iIng gear, and In some of the heavier squalls the wheel threatened to take charge and piteh the lttle shipmaster clean over the spokes. Amid the bellowing roar of the tor- nado, speech, of course, was Impossible, and vision, too, was limited Vo human eys could look Into the wind, and even to let it strike the face was a torture. The sea did not get up. The crest of any off wave which trled to rise was cut remorselessly by the kr of the ricane, and spread as a throughout the wind. It . In- deed to tell where ocean ceased and air began. The whole sea was spread in & blurr of white and green. The big helpless liner a: plucked savagely at the Saligon's and the pailr of them were moving coastward with speed. Left to herself and steam- ing full speed into the gale. the litt Saigon would have been able tain her position, nor galning any. in charge, she was being the roaring surf of the with perilous speed It was possible to see can beach dmly down the wind, and when Cortolvin turned face away from the stinging blast the tornado, he could understand with clearness thelr exact position. Close astern was the plunging German liner, with her decks stripped and deserted and only the bridge officers exposed. Be- yond was cotton-white sea, and Dbe- yond again were great le: of white where the tort: against the yellow beach. Thirty minutes passed, each second of them brimmed with frenzied struggle for both man and machinery. The tor- nado raged and boomed and roared, and the backward drift was a thing which could be measured with the eye. Then the old mate heaved himself up the bridge ladder by laborious inches. His clothes were whipping from hi in tattered ribbons, his hat was goune, and the grizzled hair stood out from the back of his head like the bristles of a broom. He clawed his way along the rail and put his great red face alose to Kettle's ear. *“We can't hold her, taking us ashore. We shall be there in a dozen minutes, and then it will be ‘Jones” for the lot of us.” Captain Kettle glared, but made no ar- ticulate reply. If he could have spared a hand from the wheelspokes, it is prob- able that Mr. Murgatroyd would have felt the weight of it. The old fellow bawled at him again. “The hands knew it as well as me, and they say they're not going to be drowned for anybody. They say they're going to cast off the hawser."” This time Captain Kettle yelled back a reply. “You thing!” he cried. “You putty man, get back to your post! If you want to live, keep those niggers’ fingers off the shackle. By James, if that tow s cast off, I'll turn the Saigon for the beach, and drown the whole crew of you inside three minutes. By James! yes, and you know me, and you know I'll do it, too. You ham-faced jelly- fish, away aft with you, and save your blooming life!" The man winced under the lttle cap- tain’s tongue, and went away, and Cap- tain Kettle looked across the wheel at his assistant. Cortolvin shrugged his shoulders and glanced backward at the Beach and nodded. Kettle leaned across and shouted: “I know it, sir, as well as you do, I know it as well as you do. But I've got a fortune In tow yonder, and- I'd rather dle than set it adrift. It fsn't one fortune, either; it's a dozen fortumes, and I have just got to grab one of them, sir, with a family, and I've known what it was to watch and see ’em hungry. You'll stand by me, Cortolvin?" “It seems I promised. You know I've been long enough with Mahometans, skip- per, to be somewhat a fatalist. So I say, ‘God is great! and our fates are written on our foreheads, and no man can changs by an inch the path which is foreor- dained he should tread.' But they are qQueer fates, some of them. I went away from England because of my wife; I step out of the middle of Arabla, and I tumble across you, and hear that she's dead; I look forward to going home and living a peaceful country life; and now it appears I'm to be drowned obscurely, out of the touch of newspapers. However, TNl be consistent. I won't grumble, and you may hear me say it aloud: ‘La Allah Allah Auan! ™ Captain Kettle made no reply. Through the infernal uproar of the tornado he didt not hear much of what was said, and part of what did reach his ears was be- yond his comprehension. Besides, his mind was, not unnatdraily, occupied with mone selfish considerations. Astern of him, in were some thousand were all assets for salvage. ping fountains ed ocean roared The detail of human life did not enter much into his calculations. He had been brought up in & sehool where life is cheap, and not so pleasant and savory a thing that it s set much store on. The passengers were part of the ship, just as much as were Continued on Page ¢