THE STORYTELLER.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LI, Issue 213, 29 August 1908, Page 3

THE STORYTELLER.

AN OWNER S MAN. 1 By E. Newton Bungey. "Mr. Bulstrode wants to see you, Captain Gresham," remarked the clerk in the outer office of Bulstrode & Co., steamship owners. Captain Gresham nodded and smiled. He was a tall, well-made man, with irongrey hair, and bronzed, clean-shaven face from which a pair of bright blue eyes gazed steadily at the world. Two minutes later he was seated in Mr, Bulstrode's private office opposite the shipowner. The latter was a man of some forty years of age, spare of build, with a keen face, the very aspect of which bade men beware. It showed a grasping disposition, that its owner trusted no man, and was therefore not to be trusted. Notwithstanding this ho wes going to make a show, of trusting Captain Gresham. "Good-morning, captain," he said, as affably as he could. Then with a sigh hj» added: "Will you have a cigarette?" Captain GTesham gazed dubiously at the cigarettes. "No, thanks, Mr. Bulstrode, but I'D. p«t on my pipe if you don't mind." With an air of relief—for had he not •aved a cigarettet—Mr. Bulstrode assented. It was said'that the owner only wore a beard and moustache in order to save the cost of shaving. "Now, Captain Gresham," he said, when the skipper looked as comfortable M he could in his surroundings, "I mat to have a quiet little chat with you. How long have you been master of the Black Prince?" " Fourteen years," replied the captain, after a few moments' thought. "Fourteen years come midsummer." • "Ah, yes," murmured Bulstrode thoughtfully, examining a paper the while. "Jackson had her six years before that, and Bobbins four years before him. Altogether that makes twentyfour years, and she wasn't new when we bought her." ■ "She is a good ship," Gresham remarked, feeling he ought to say something. "But she's old, captain," said the owner emphatically. "Now, what do you reckon she's worth?" [The master of. the Black Prince pondered. " Well, as near as I could say, fifteen thousand," be replied. " Fifteen thousand," repeated Mr. Bulstrode thoughtful}'. "I should have said seventeen thousand myself." He paused. " Would you like a new ship, captain?" he went on suddenly. • "In some ways," replied the master, "though I have got very used to the Black Prince. She wants a lot of understanding," "She's insured for thirty-eight thousand," murmured Mr. Bulstrode, as though he were repeating his thoughts aloud. ■ Captain Gresham sat up straight, took his pipe from his mouth, and glared at the owner. The latter was leaning back in his chair staring thoughtfully at the ceiling. "I beg your pardon," the master said sternly. "I said she was insured for thirtyeight thousand." Mr. Bulstrode managed to meet the master's glance for a moment as he repeated his remark. "Were we talking about insurance?" asked Captain Gresham slowly. "Oh, no, no," cried Bulstrode, trying to speak in an easy manner. "Then it doesn't interest me, does it?" " That's as you like, captain." The master of the Black Prince rose to his feet and towered over the seated form of the owner. "See here," Mr. Bulstrode, wfoat's your game? You're wanting me to play dirty, are you?" "ItTl mean a thousand in your pocket, captain." "It'll mean my fist in your eye if you're not careful," shouted the master. "Dick Gresham's lived straight for fortyfive years, and he's not going crooked now. Not for you or a thousand like you. So you just bear that in mind, Mr. Bulstrode." • "My dear captain, pray don't get excited," murmured the owner coolly. " We were just having a quiet little conversation on the merits of the Black Prince. I don't recollect saying anything about a dirty game." No, but you hinted at it." "Beally, Captain Gresham, you must have misunderstood me. I am meiely anxious to have your opinion'whether I should keep the Black Prince or sell her. But, still, I will decide for myself. By the way, when do you sail?" , "Next Monday." ■ "With a full company!" "No, Mr. Bulstrode; there are two forecastle hands short." " I will see to them, captain. I have had some recommendations, and I'll send you two men along.—Confound the fool and his morals," Bulstrode muttered viciously when he was alone. " I must be careful." Mr. Bulstrode constituted the firm. The "& Co." was only there to look < pretty. The owner Was a man so grasping and avaricious that he would go to any lengths to make money. No task would be too low or too arduous for him, provided he saw a decent. percentage was likely to accrue from it. "Dirty little swab," growled the master, as he strolled through the old- ; fashioned streets of Westport. "Wanted me to lose my ship. I'd see him somewhere else first." Captain Gresham saw no more of the owner during the few days that intervened before the Black Prince sailed, hut he was reminded of that gentleman by the first mate informing him that the two new hands had joined. , "What are they like, Mr. King? Some of his own kidney?" "One of 'em is, sir. The other's a decent sort of chap." "Ah!" murmured Captain Gresham, and he fell to thinking of Mr. Bulstrode and his ways. He made'it his early duty to observe the two new hands. They were respectively named Collinson and O'Neill, but already they were spoken of in the forecastle as ■" owner's men," a title of contempt. O'Neill, however, was an easy-going, open-hearted sort of man, and speedily gained the goodwill of the forecastle. But Collinson was distrusted, none of the hands took to him. For the matter of that, though, he did not seem to court friendship, and was quite content to be left alone. Both he and O'Neill worked well, and the officers had no fault to find with them. "You've served with me before, haven't you?" the skipper asked, addressing O'Neill one morning when the Black Prince was several days out. The man sprang up quickly from the rope he was coiling. . "No, sir," he replied. "Curious; I could have sworn you'd ■ailed with me some time before," the captain murmured, passing on. That evening, as he sat alone in the chart room, he suddenly thumped the table with his fist. '■What a son of a tar-bucket I am," he muttered. "Fancy not thinking of that before." ■He smoked steadily for several minutes, and then began to repeat his thoughts aloud. "So that's the way you're going to work it, Mr. Bulstrode," he murmured. "I must watch them both. One, though, is probably a blind; he is too 'cute to pay two men to do his dirty work." "Collinson seems just the sort," he went on. "O'Neill is not the kind of man Bulstrode would pay." Again he was silent, and he consumed a pipeful of tobacco before his lips moved again. "11l wager a keg of rum that's his game," he muttered. "He's 'cute enough to think that .1 might suspect, so he sends two men instead of one. One of these men is just the sort of man to b? suspected, but I'll bet my boots that he's not the man to watch. It's O'Neill I must keep my eye on." He pondered over the situation Ion? after he was in his bunk, and suddenly murmured: "That'll be it. He's sure to try th« tri«k that way." , In the early morning he ascertain 1 ! what night watches O'Neill was on duty in, and found that they varied on alternate nights. Thus on Monday night he was on duty from eight until twelve midnight, and on Tuesday he started at midnight and was on until four .n Wednesday morning, going on again at j eight on Wednesdav night, and so on. Without saying a word of his suspicions to anyone, Captain Gresham made his arrangements accordingly. One night, when the Black Prince had completed about half of her run to Monte Video, where she was bound with a mixed cargo. Captain Gresham was snugly ensconced in a corner of the hoi i. Although none of the ship's company knew it. the master had already spent a number of hours on previous occasions in the same position. Suddenly he heard a soft rustling. and was at once on the alert. His eyes had grown accustomed to the darkness and he w-.is able to distinguish object' with a certain amount of ease. Through the gloom lie saw a man stealing along, carrying something m

his hand. Presently the man pause), and lit a lantern; by its light the captain saw that the nocturnal visitor was, O'Neill—which was exactly what he had' anticipated. From a bag he was carrying, O'Neill withdrew some tools and began to wur.i rapidly with a crowbar and a padded hammer. His blows fell fast, and tlr.' timber he was driving into began to creak. Then Captain Gresham judged that the time had arrived to make his presence known, lie carried this out by three bounds, which brought him oil to O'Neill's back and sent ihe man Hying. Captain Gresham grabbed him by his throat and held him down. "You swab!" he said. "I thought as much." O'Neill struggled furiously, but he was like a baby in the great brown hands of the grim-faced caplain. "Ah," suddenly cried the skipper, "1 thought 1 knew your face, you rat." ■Than he shouted at the top of his voice, and the second mate and a coupie of men tame tumbling down the hold steps. "This way, Sir. Warren," shouted the captain. " I've got O'Neill here. Caught him in the act of removing the ship's cock and trying to sink us. Take him on deck and truss him up." With angry growis the men seized O'Neill and escorted hiui on to the deck. Their maimers were hardly polite, but they were effectual. "Dirty tyke! Hold your row!" one of them growled, accompanying the remark with a deft movement of his list which persuaded O'Neill to remain silent. "Tie him up in the cook's galley," the skipper said, "and keep watch over him; I'll deal with him in the morning. Send the carpenter below to make gojd the damage." . Eight hours later the look-out stated that the Storm King, the Black Prince s sister ship, was in sight. Presently a string of Hags fluttered from the Storm King's mast, whieh the signalman read as follows: "Have you anything to report." Now, the master of the Storm King was a Captain Ashby, who was brother-in-law to Mr. Bulstrfde. There was no love lost between the two skippers, for Captain Gresham mistrusted Ashby. "Tell him all's well," he said, and presently the reply signal was hoisted. "Am coming aboard," signalled Ashby. A boat dropped from the davits of the Storm King, and presently Captain Ashby came aboard. "I've got a packet for one of your men," he said, after the usual greetings had taken place- "As I think it contains something of value, I brought it myself. The man's name is O'Neill." "O'Neill," repeated Captain Gresham. "Ah, I thought the name was familiar. I'm afraid you'll have to take the. packet on to Westport—we didn't ship O'Neill this voyage." "Didn't ship him?" Ashby cried m astonishment. "No, Mr. Bulstrode did not send him along." Captain Ashby, to use Gresham's words, was "struck all of a heap." He declined 'his confrere's hospitality, and was presently rowed back to the Storm King. " Very pretty," murmured Captain Gresham, his face veTy grim. "The Black Prince founders, and curiously enough the Storm King arrives on the scene just afterwards. I wonder what Ashby will say when he reaches Westport." The master rang a bell and gave instructions for the first mate to come to him. "I have decided not to keep O'Neill confined, Mr. King," the skipper said. " You will liberate him, but see that he performs specially selected work. Let me tell you this, Mr., King," the captain cried, smiting the table before him with his fist, "there is so job t«o dirty for you to set O'Neill on. See that he does the filthiest work possible, and / don't take a word from him. Every morning let one of the men see that he is bathed, preferably with the hose, and the barber is to shave him regularly every day. The first mate could not help smiling at these strange instructions, but the captain's face was very grim. " I refuse to hear a word from O'Neill under any circumstances until I send I for him," the skipper said. "Aye, aye, sir," responded the mate, and then he withdrew. He communicated the quartermaster's instructions to the quartermaster,, and presently every member of the ships company was aware of them. They were received with the greatest enthusiasm, for the feeling of the crew was , very strong against O'Neill. i Thenceforward the owner's man had ' an indescribably wicked time. He was at the beck and call of everybody, from the mate to the cook's boy. If he tried to object he would be more often than : not knocked down, and there was no one to defend him. When he was off duty he would cower in a corner of the forecastle watching ' each man anxiously. "'Ere you," a brawny A.B. would ' shout, "come an' take my boots off. If you as much as tickle me foot i'll ! give you a swipe over the 'ead with one of me boots." ' "Come 'ere, Irish," another man would ' bellow presently. " Just you clean me pipe out. Do it properly, mind, or I'll ' ram it down yer ugly throat an' you'll never live to try an' sink a ship agin." ' But what O'Neill objected to most , was the enforced bath and the attention given him by the barber. " I don't want to be shaved," he would j yellWhereupon the barber would accidentally let the lathering brush slide into his victim's open mouth and thus keep him very quiet. When the Black Prince was within a day's steam of Monte Video, Captain [ : Gresham gave instructions that O'Neill should be brought to him. Presently the man stood in the captain's cabin, surveying the master with a baleful expression in his eyes. ' "You beast," he hissed. ]' " Steady, little man," growled Captain Gresham. " My fists are itching to make your acquaintance, and if you don't keep your tongue still I sha'n't keep my fists still. Now, then," he went on, "I've drawn up a paper here that you're got to sign. I'll read it to you." He carried out this programme, but at each word O'Neill's face grew more sickly in hue and his eyes glittered more evilly. "I won't sign it; you can kill me first," he cried. "There's another day to go yet, my man, and I flon't envy you if you don't sign. Besides, there's the British Consul at Monte Video." "I won't sign," O'Neill screeched. "Then the powers that be help you; I'll set the men on you after I've finished with you," growled Captain Gresham, rising to his feet his face very grim and his eyes blazing. O'Neill cowered back against the door, watching tlie skipper as a mouse might watch a cat. "I'll give you one more chance," said the master. " Will you sign ?" For a second O'Neill hesitated. "Yes, curße you!" he snarled. "Good. I thought you would. Wait a moment while I get some witnesses.'' He rang for his boy and told him to send the mates in. Presently the three officers entered. "I want you to read this document, gentlemen," said the skipper. "When you have finished it O'Neill will sign it "and I shall want you to witness hi* signature." .The mates read it one after the other, and their astonishment was vast. They stared from the paper to O'Neill and from O'Neill to the paper. "I now want you to give me your solemn oaths that you will never speak of this interview or of the paper you have seen, unless the conditions are not fulfilled," said Captain Gresham. " For this purpose I have a Testament here." The three officers swore as instructed by the skipper, though their mystification was beyond all hounds. Then Captain Gresham told O'Neill to sign, and, after some hesitation, the latter did so. The skipper examined the signature and then compared it with one on another document. " That won't do." he growled. " Sign properly, or by the Lord Harry you'll be sorry." An exclamation, half a sob. half an oath, burst from O'Neill's white lip* and he signed again. "That's lietter. Mr. Bulstrode," remarked the skipper. "Bulstrode!" cried the three mutes together. "Yes, gentlemen. Mr. Bulstrode without his Ward and moustache. You will understand now why I kept the gentleman clean-shaven." "So it is," muttered the first and third together—the second was too amazed to speak. Then the master related the history of his interview with the owner, and of hi-; subsequent suspicions. "When I got him under me in 0" half li"ht in the hold f recognised hni'. ' for mv hand covered up his month and chin."'Captain Gresham explained._ i The document the owner had signed i «n as follows:-"I, Harry William

Bulstrode, of Bulstrode & Co., tile Quay, Westport, being of sound mind, do hereby declare that on 'the seventh day of August, 19(1—, 1 did suggest to Captain (.ireshain, master of the Black Prince, that lie should cause his ship to be lost so that (lie insurance money should he paid. I also declare that the said Captain O-resham refused to lo this, and that 1 shipped under him, under the name, of Timothy O'Neill, and that on the'2'Jth day of August, 190—, 1 did attempt to remove the ship's cock in the hold of the Black Prince with a view to causing the vessel to sink, and thus gaining the insurance money. I further declare that Captain Ashby, master of the Storm King, acting under my instructions, appeared in the same latitude and longitude at the time I anticipated the Black Prince would sink, in order to take off the crew of the latter vessel. And I further agree to pay each officer and man of the Black ■Prince one year's salary in excess of that due to them as a mark of my appreciation of their services. And i do hereby swear that I will never discharge any officer or member of the ship's company of the Black Prince unless he be recommended for discharge by his superiors. Should I fail to carry out this promise, I hereby undertake ■to pay any man so discharged two years' full pay, in addition to that due to him." Then followed a form of oath copied by Captain Urcsham, the owner's signature, and the signatures of three witnesses. "And remember this, Mr. Bulstrode," said the master grimly. "If you try any monkey tricks and trv to force a man to resign, I'll make this document public. You needn't fear that 1 shall give you away.; all we want is a life ■job and some compensation for the risk we have undergone." Mr. Bulstrode had laid his plans verywell. At Westport it was understood that he had gone away for a rest cure, and, accordingly had kept his address 'secret. But a man in his pay who tenanted a lonely farm in the Midlands ■was ready to swear that Mr. Bulstrode had,lodged there all the time that he was absent from Westport. Captain Gresham, with his same officers and crew, now has charge of a fine new five thousand ton steamer. But the crew have not yet got over the extraordinary generosity of Mr. Bulstrode. Not can they understand how O'Neill managed to escape at Monte Video.