VANDERDECKEN

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 541, 19 December 1928, Page 5

VANDERDECKEN

By

H. DE VERB ST AC POORE.

CHAPTER XXXIII. (Continued). ‘Ahoy!” cried Hank, as the boat c»me alongside, grinding the blisters of her. "Fling’s a rope there —why. jood Lord, it's Jake.” It was. Jake, looking just the same as when Hank had fired him off the Wear Jack; only now. instead of a fur tap, he was wearing a dingy white Stetson with the brim turned down. had come along with the McGinnis erowd partly because he wanted a job. and partly because he wanted to see the downfall of Hank. As a matter of fact, he had seen the triumph of Hank, if you can call it a triumph, ‘or he had been watching the whole of the proceedings from start to finish. Recognising the inevitable, he made no bones, but flung the rope. “Well, you scoundrel,” said Hank, as he came on deck, ‘‘what are you doing here?” “What you doin’ yourself?” said fake.

“I'll jolly soon show you.” said Hank. w ho had no time to waste in verbal f tplanations, seizing the scamp by the shoulders, turning him round ill some extraordinary way, and giving “ im a shove that sent him running torward two yards. “Get the gaskets of the jib, and look slippy about it. Vuick, now, or I’ll be after you. Bud. ni . going to leave the boat. There’s a dinghy aboard, and that scow would flutter up the decks too much. Cut h And come on. Clap on to !r e throat and peak halyards. Now, fo, ail together, yeo-ho.” •’tainsail and foresail took the wind a; last, and what a mainsail it was, J -ter the canvas of the Wear Jack—“'tty as a dishcloth, and patched j e 3 Ptl°t maru had once been; *ad what sticks after the sp-ars of te Jack! From the main boom that , a ® seen better days to the gaff with s wooden jaws, bound to creak like four-post bedstead. •sow the winch!” cried Hank. "Clap 11 to the winch and roust her out.” He took the wheel, while Jake, and Bud clapped on to the huh, and as he stood listening to the usic of the chain coming in. he cast

his eyes away toward the south horn of the bay, where the McGinnis crew could be seen moving slowly now toward the bay beyond, followed by the Mexicans, evidently half beaten, but still doggedly in pursuit. “She’s out of the mud!” cried George. Hank turned the spokes of the wheel, and the Heart, with all her canvas thrashing, took the wind, got steerage way on her and as the anchor came home lay over on the starboard tack. She had been anchored to north of the break in the reefs and this course would take her diagonally through the break.

Hank, who had bitten off a piece of plug tobacco, stood, working his lantern jaws as he steered. Gulls raced them as they went and the breeze strengthened up, while block, spar and cordage creaked to the boost of the waves and the slap of the bow wash. They passed the horn of the northern reef by a short ten yards, the outgoing tide and the, south running current foaming round the rocks like destruction gnashing at them; then, lifting her bowsprit, the Heart took the great sea, dipping and rising again to the steadily marching swell.

Hank held on, the wind was breezing up stxong from the south of west, and he was keeping her close-hauled, then a few miles out with Mexico a cloud gn the sea line and the reefs a memory, he spun the wheel and laid her on a due westerly course. He called Jake. _ “You can steer?”

“Sure.” said Jake. “Then catch hold and keep her as she is.” He stood watching while Jake steered. , _ That individual, despite the shove he had received, seemed to bear no malice, absolutely unperturbed he *tood with his hands on the spokes, rhewin" his eve wandering from the binnacle to the luff of the mainsail. "Whar’s the Jack? he suddenly asked, turning to spit into the starboard scupper. “What were you doing with those chaps?” countered Hank. “>le! Them chaps, why you saw what I was doin’, keepin’ ship, whiles they went ashore, what were you doin’ with them?”

“Mean to tell me you don’t know why they went ashore?” “Me* nuthin’. I’m only a foremast hand signed on ’cause I was out of a °ob. I saw you all stutterin’ about on shore, then you comes off and takes the ship—that s all I knov. “Look here,” said Hank, “d’you mean to tell me you didn t put the McGinnis crowd on to us before we left Frisco, d’you mean to say you weren’t on the wharf that night when Black Mullins dropped aboard and

peeked through the skylight and saw Mr. “Candon?” Me? Which? Me! N’ more than Adam. You’re talkin’ French.” “Don’t bother with him,” said George, “come on down below and let’s see what it’s like.” They left the deck to Jake, still chewing, and came down the companion way to the cabin, where McGinnis and his afterguard had dwelt. Bunks with tossed blankets showed on either side, aft lay the captain’s cabin, door open and an oilskin swinging like a corpse from a nail, above and through the atmosphere of must and bad tobacco, came the smell of the Heart, a perfume of shark oil, ineradicable, faint, but unforgettable, once smelt. George opened the portholes, and Tomjnie took her seat on a bunk edge, looking round her, but saying nothing. A cheap brass lamp swung from the beam above the table, the table was covered with white marbled oilcloth, stained and stamped with the innumerable ring marks from the bottoms of coffee cups, about the whole place was that atmosphere of sordidness and misery that man alone can create. Tommie sat absorbing it while Hank and George explored lockers and investigated McGinnis’s cabin. Then she rose and took off her coat. Then she stripped the oilcloth from the table, said “Faugh!” rolled it up, and flung it on the floor. “Say!” cried she, “isn’t there any soap in this hooker?” “Soap!” cried Hank, appearing from McGinnis’s cabin carrying the log book and a tin box. “I dunno. Jake will know.” “Go up and send him down, you can take the wheel for a minute while I get this place clean. Goodness!” “You wait,” said Hank. He went on deck, followed by George, and the next minute Jake appeared. Despite Tommie's get-up, he had spotted her for a girl wheu she came on board, not being a haunter of the the pictures he had not recognised her; what she was, or where she had come from, he could not imagine—or what she wanted from him. He was soon to learn. “Take off your hat,” said Tommie. “Now, then, get me some soap and a scrubbing brush, if there is such a thing on this dirty ship." "Soap?” said Jake. “Yes—soap.” He turned and went on deck, and came back in a minute or so with a tin of soft soap and a mop. “I said scrubbing brush.” “Ain’t none.” “Well, we’ll have to make the mop do. Now go and fetch a bucket of water ” “Ain't enough on board for swilling.” “There’s enough in the sea, we must make it do. Go on. and don’t stand there scratching your head.”

Hank, leaving George at the wheel, and coming down half an hour later to see what was going on, returned jubilant. “She’s working that gink like a housemaid. He’s washed the table, an’s scrubbing the floor, and she’s stripping the blankets off the bunks. She’s going to make him wash them. She’s a peach.” The tin box with the ship’s money, some, thousand dollars,, and the log, lay on the deck. He placed them on one side, and then stood erect and walked to the rail. He gazed aft at the far-away shore as if visualising something there. “Bud.” “Yep?” “Nothing’s ever sft me like she has, right by the neck. I reckon it’s a punishment on me for having invented rat traps.” “Oh, don’t be an ass.” “Easy to say that.” “Have you told her?” “Lord! No.” “Well, go down and tell her, and get it over, same as sea-sickness.” “Bud, I could no more tell her than I could walk into a blazing fiery furnace like those chaps in the Scriptures.” ; “Why?”

“Because, Bud —well there’s two reasons. First of all she’d laugh at me, maybe.” “She would, sure.” “And then —there’s a girl ” “Yes.” “A girl—another girl.” “Mrs. Driscoll?” “Oh, Lord, no; she ain’t a girl. This one I’m telling you of is running a little store of her own in Cable Street, kind of fancy work business —l’ve known her a year—Ostrander is her name. Zillah Ostrander. She’s running a fancy work —” “I know, you’ve told me; are you engaged to her?” “Well, we’ve been keeping company,” said Hank, “and it amounts to that.” “You mean you are—then you’ve no right to bother about Tommie.” “It’s she that’s bothering me.” “Well, you may make your mind easy, s’far as 1 can see she’s harpooned—that blighter harpooned her.” “B.C. ?” “Yep—remember her face when he bunked, and ever since she hasn’t been the same ” Hank was silent for a moment.

“But, Bud, she couldn’t care for that chap after the way he’s landed us?” “No, but she cared for him before, and- maybe she cares for him still, Lord only knows —women are funny things. Anyhow, you’ve no right to think of her with that other girl in tow. Why, Hank, you’ve always been going on about women being saints and all that and now you old double dealing——” “It ain’t me,” said Hank. “I reckon it’s human nature —but I’ll bite on the bullet —after all, it’s not so much as a girl I care for, but just for herself.” “Well, bite on what’s her name as well—Beliah ” “Zillah.” “All the same, keep thinking of her —and catch hold of the wheel. I want a quiet smoke.” Half ail hour later Jake wandered 011 deck with the mop and the bucket. He looked subdued, and a few minutes later Tommie’s head and shoulders appeared. “The place is pretty clean now,” said T.C. “Maybe some of you will get at where the food’s stowed and find out what we can have to eat. 1 m going ’long to the galley to get the fire on.” CHAPTER XXXIV.—SANTANDER ROCK. The wind held steady all that day and half the following night, then it died to a tepid breeze, just sufficient to keep steerage way on the schooner. Hank was the first up in the morning, relieving George at the wheel. After supper on the night before they had made a plan based on the fact that there wfere provisions on board enough for a three months’ cruise for four people. This plan was simple enough. They would put out far to avoid the islands and any bother of complications. Hank’s idea was to strike a course nor’-west to a point midway between Honolulu and San Francisco, and then make directly for the city of the Golden Gate. They would tell Tyrebuck the truth, but it would be no sin to delude the gaping public with a Hank-constructed yarn, sure that McGinnis or his relations would never dispute it. The only bother was that Tyrebuck would want his ten thousand dollars. If the Wear Jack had been wrecked, all would have been well, for the insurance people would have paid, but they had just lost her, as a person might lose a horse or a motor-car. “Of course,” said Hank, “there was no agreement with him. Wlio’d have ever imagined such a thing as our losing her like that. All the same, I’ve got to pay old man Tyrebuck—it’s a debt of honour. I’ll have to mortgage the trap, that’s all.” “I’ll go half,” said George. “No, you won’t. r was the borrower, this expedition was mine, and if I'd got the 25,000 reward I'd have stuck to it.” “Say,” said George. “Yep?”

“You told me you'd written a story once.”

“What about it?” “Well, write the whole of this expedition up, and sell it to the ‘Popular,’ if you want money.” “B’gosh,” said Hank, “that’s not a' bad idea, only it would give the show away.” “Not a bit. Pretend it’s fiction.” “It sounds like fiction,” said Tommie. “I don’t mind. You can stick me in as much as you like.” “I’ll do it, maybe,” said Hank. But there was another point. Wallaces and their wrecked junk, and Tommie and her story. The public would want to know the particulars of her abduction, and Wallaeks would ■want compensation. Althusen and Moscovitch and Mrs. Raphael would not be behind-hand in their wants, either. “Leave it to me,” said Miss Coulthurst. “When we get to San Francisco, just let me slip on shore, and I’ll take the first train to Los Angeles and I’ll fix it. I’ll tell old Wallack the whole truth. He won’t want compensation. I reckon the advertisement he’s had will be enough for him, and the film wasn’t damaged. The reel was safe in one of those tents. They left it at that, ignorant of the new development impending. Hank took the wheel and George snuffed out the binnacle lights. It was day, though the sun had not yet broken the morning bank on the Eastern horizon. “There’s a big rock on the port bow,” said George, “away over there it’s Santander, I believe —remember? It’s on the chart. Where’s Jake?” “Right,” said Hank. “Where’s Jake? I let him turn in ten minutes ago; he’s in the fo’cs’le.” “Well, I’ll go and make some coffee," said George. “Keep her as she goes.” He disappeared, and Hank, left alone, stood at the wheel, the warm wind gently lifting his hair and his hawk eyes wandering from the binnacle to the far-off rock and from the rock to the sea line. Ten minutes passed and then George appeared, a cup of coffee in his hand. “Shove her on the deck for a minute,” said Hank, “and have a look with those binoculars, something funny about that rock, seems to me.” George placed the cup on the deck,

fetched the old binoculars Jake had been using the day before, and levelled them at the rock. “Ship piled on the north side,” said George. “I can see the masts, some sort of small hooker or another. It’s the Santander rock, can’t be anything else. There’s nothing else of any size marked down just here, but the Ties Marias Islands and they are to the South.” “Well, we’ll have a look at her.” said Hank. “There’s maybe some poor devils on board. She’s flying no signals, is she?” “No, she’s signal enough in herself.” Just then Tommie came on deck. She had a look through the binoculars and then went off to the galley with George to see about breakfasi. There were plenty of provisions or. the Heart. McGinnis and his crew had evidently plenty of cash or credi. to judge by the condition of the lazarette and store-room, and when Tommie and George had satisfied their wants. Hank, giving them the deck, came down. When he returned on deck, the schooner was closing up with the rock and the wreck was plainly visible to the naked eye, with the gulls shouting round her. The Santander rock, shaped and spired like a cathedral, runs north and south, three hundred yards long, two hundred feet high, caved here and there by the sea and worn by wind and rain into ledges and depressions where the gulls roost—where they have roosted for ten thousand years It is the top of a big submarine mountain that rises gradually from the depth of a mile. Quite in shore on the northern side, the lead giveß a depth of only 20 fathoms, gradually deepening as you put away by five fathoms to the hundred yards till suddenly the lead finds nothing. There must be a sheer, unimaginable cliff just there some three-quarters of a mile high! It was on the north side of this great rock which is at once a montrous and a tragic figure that Hie wreck was skewered, listing to starboard, her sticks -till standing, but her canvas unstowed. The crew hao evidently piled her there, perhaps, in the dark. Now, drawing close to her, that stern seemed familiar, and tha fact that she was a yacht became apparent It was Hank who voiced the gTowinc conviction in their minds. “Boys!” cried Hank, “she’s the Wear Jack!” (To t»e continued.)