The Complete Works of Stephen Crane (156 page)

Every one outside the engine rooms was set on watch. The
Foundling,
going at full speed into the northeast, slashed a wonderful trail of blue silver on the dark bosom of the sea.

A man on deck cried out hurriedly, “There she is, sir!” Many eyes searched the western gloom, and one after another the glances of the men found a tiny black shadow on the deep, with a line of white beneath it.

“He couldn’t be heading better if he had a line to us,” said Flanagan.

There was a thin flash of red in the darkness. It was long and keen, like a crimson rapier. A short, sharp report sounded, and then a shot whined swiftly in the air and blipped into the sea. The captain had been about to take a bite of plug tobacco at the beginning of this incident, and his arm was raised. He remained like a frozen figure while the shot whined, and then, as it blipped into the sea, his hand went to his mouth, and he bit the plug. He looked wide-eyed at the shadow with its line of white.

The senior Cuban officer came hurriedly to the bridge. “It is no good to surrender,” he cried; “they would only shoot or hang all of us.”

There was another thin red flash and a report. A loud whirring noise passed over the ship.

“I’m not going to surrender,” said the captain, hanging with both hands to the rail. He appeared like a man whose traditions of peace are clenched in his heart. He was as astonished as if his hat had turned into a dog. Presently he wheeled quickly, and said: “What kind of a gun is that?”

“It is a one-pounder,” cried the Cuban officer. “The boat is one of those little gunboats made from a yacht. You see?”

“Well, if it’s only a yawl, he’ll sink us in five more minutes,” said Flanagan. For a moment he looked helplessly off at the horizon. His under jaw hung low. But a moment later something touched him like a stiletto-point of inspiration. He leaped to the pilothouse, and roared at the man at the wheel. The
Foundling
sheered suddenly to starboard, made a clumsy turn, and Flanagan was bellowing through the tube to the engine room before anybody discovered that the old basket was heading straight for the Spanish gunboat. The ship lunged forward like a draught horse on the gallop.

This strange maneuver by the
Foundling
first dealt consternation on board. Men instinctively crouched on the instant, and then swore their supreme oath, which was unheard by their own ears.

Later the maneuver of the
Foundling
dealt consternation on board the gunboat. She had been going victoriously forward, dim-eyed from the fury of her pursuit. Then this tall, threatening shape had suddenly loomed over her like a giant apparition.

The people on board the
Foundling
heard panic shouts, hoarse orders. The little gunboat was paralyzed with astonishment.

Suddenly Flanagan yelled with rage, and sprang for the wheel. The helmsman had turned his eyes away. As the captain whirled the wheel far to starboard, he heard a crunch, as the
Foundling,
lifted on a wave, smashed her shoulder against the gunboat, and he saw, shooting past, a little launch sort of a thing with men on her that ran this way and that way. The Cuban officers, joined by the cook and a seaman, emptied their revolvers into the surprised terror of the seas.

There was naturally no pursuit. Under comfortable speed the
Foundling
stood to the northward.

The captain went to his berth chuckling. “There, by God!” he said. “There, now!”

IV

When Flanagan came again on deck, the first mate, his arm in a sling, walked the bridge. Flanagan was smiling a wide smile. The bridge of the
Foundling
was dipping afar and then afar. With each lunge of the little steamer the water seethed and boomed alongside, and the spray dashed high and swiftly.

“Well,” said Flanagan, inflating himself, “we’ve had a great deal of a time, and we’ve come through it all right, and thank Heaven it is all over.”

The sky in the northeast was of a dull brick-red in tone, shaded here and there by black masses that billowed out in some fashion from the flat heavens.

“Look there,” said the mate.

“Hum,” said the captain. “Looks like a blow, don’t it?”

Later the surface of the water rippled and flickered in the preliminary wind. The sea had become the color of lead. The swashing sound of the waves on the sides of the
Foundling
was now provided with some manner of ominous significance. The men’s shouts were hoarse.

A squall struck the
Foundling
on her starboard quarter, and she leaned under the force of it as if she were never to return to the even keel. “I’ll be glad when we get in,” said the mate. “I’m going to quit then. I’ve got enough.”

“Hell!” said the beaming Flanagan.

The steamer crawled on into the northwest. The white water sweeping out from her deadened the chug-chug-chug of the tired old engines.

Once, when the boat careened, she laid her shoulder flat on the sea and rested in that manner. The mate, looking down the bridge, which slanted more than a coal chute, whistled softly to himself. Slowly, heavily, the
Foundling
arose to meet another sea.

At night waves thundered mightily on the bows of the steamer, and water, lighted with the beautiful phosphorescent glamor, went boiling and howling along the deck.

By good fortune the chief engineer crawled safely, but utterly drenched, to the galley for coffee. “Well, how goes it, chief?” said the cook, standing with his fat arms folded, in order to prove that he could balance himself under any condition.

The engineer shook his head slowly. “This old biscuit-box will never see port again. Why, she’ll fall to pieces.”

Finally, at night, the captain said, “Launch the boats.” The Cubans hovered about him. “Is the ship going to sink?” The captain addressed them politely: “Gentlemen, we are in trouble; but all I ask of you is that you do just what I tell you, and no harm will come to anybody.”

The mate directed the lowering of the first boat, and the men performed this task with all decency, like people at the side of a grave.

A young oiler came to the captain. “The chief sends word, sir, that the water is almost up to the fires.”

“Keep at it as long as you can.”

“Keep at it as long as we can, sir.”

Flanagan took the senior Cuban officer to the rail, and, as the steamer sheered high on a great sea, showed him a yellow dot on the horizon. It was smaller than a needle when its point is toward you.

“There,” said the captain. The wind-driven spray was lashing his face. “That’s Jupiter Light on the Florida coast. Put your men in the boat we’ve just launched, and the mate will take you to that light.”

Afterward Flanagan turned to the chief engineer. “We can never beach her,” said the old man. “The stokers have got to quit in a minute.” Tears were in his eyes.

The
Foundling
was a wounded thing. She lay on the water with gasping engines, and each wave resembled her death blow.

Now the way of a good ship on the sea is finer than swordplay; but this is when she is alive. If a time comes that the ship dies, then her way is the way of a floating old glove, and she has that much vim, spirit, buoyancy. At this time many men on the
Foundling
suddenly came to know that they were clinging to a corpse.

The captain went to the stokeroom, and what he saw as he swung down the companion suddenly turned him hesitant and dumb. He had served the sea for many years, but this fireroom said something to him which he had not heard in his other voyages. Water was swirling to and fro with the roll of the ship, fuming greasily around half-strangled machinery that still attempted to perform its duty. Steam arose from the water, and through its clouds shone the red glare of the dying fires. As for the stokers, death might have been with silence in this room. One lay in his berth, his hands under his head, staring moodily at the wall. One sat near the foot of the companion, his face hidden in his arms. One leaned against the side, and gazed at the snarling water as it rose, and its mad eddies among the machinery. In the unholy red light and gray mist of this stifling, dim inferno they were strange figures with their silence and their immobility. The wretched
Foundling
groaned deeply as she lifted, and groaned deeply as she sank into the trough, while hurried waves then thundered over her with the noise of landslides.

But Flanagan took control of himself suddenly, and then he stirred the fireroom. The stillness had been so unearthly that he was not altogether inapprehensive of strange and grim deeds when he charged into them; but precisely as they had submitted to the sea, so they submitted to Flanagan. For a moment they rolled their eyes like hurt cows, but they obeyed the voice. The situation simply required a voice.

When the captain returned to the deck the hue of this fireroom was in his mind, and then he understood doom and its weight and complexion.

When finally the
Foundling
sank, she shifted and settled as calmly as an animal curls down in the bush-grass. Away over the waves three bobbing boats paused to witness this quiet death. It was a slow maneuver, altogether without the pageantry of uproar; but it flashed pallor into the faces of all men who saw it, and they groaned when they said, “There she goes!” Suddenly the captain whirled and knocked his head on the gunwale. He sobbed for a time, and then he sobbed and swore also.

V

There was a dance at the Imperial Inn. During the evening some irresponsible young men came from the beach, bringing the statement that several boatloads of people had been perceived offshore. It was a charming dance, and none cared to take time to believe this tale. The fountain in the courtyard plashed softly, and couple after couple paraded through the aisles of palms, where lamps with red shades threw a rose light upon the gleaming leaves. High on some balcony a mockingbird called into the evening. The band played its waltzes slumbrously, and its music to the people among the palms came faintly and like the melodies in dreams.