"Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Stories of the Sea Part 16

On each of the four vanes he found a small blade, showing by its connection that it possessed range of action, yet immovable as the vane itself, as though held firmly by inner leverage. Those on the horizontal vanes were tilted upward. Just abaft the T-shaped projection--which, fastened firmly to the hull, told him nothing of its purpose--were numerous bra.s.s posts buried flush with the surface, in each of which was a square hole, as though intended to be turned with a key or crank. Some were marked with radiating lines and numbers, and they evidently controlled the inner mechanism, part of which he could see--little bra.s.s cog-wheels, worms, and levers--through a fore-and-aft slot near the keyholes.

Rising from the forward end of this slot, and lying close to the metal hull in front of it, was a strong lever of bra.s.s, L-shaped, connected internally, and indicating to his trained mechanical mind that its only sphere of action was to lift up and sink back into the slot. He fingered it, but did not yet try to move it. A little to the left of this lever was a small blade of steel, curved to fit the convex hull,--which it hugged closely,--and hinged at its forward edge. This, too, must have a purpose,--an internal connection,--and he did not disturb it until he had learned more.

To the right of the bra.s.s lever was an oblong hatch about eight inches long, flush with the hull, and held in place by screws. Three seams, with lines of screws, encircled the round hull, showing that it was constructed in four sections; and these screws, with those in the hatch, were strong and numerous--placed there to stay.

Fatigued from his exertion, he moistened his hair, sat down, and watched the incoming tide swing the craft round parallel with the beach. As the submerged bow raised to a level with the stern, he noticed that the small blades on the horizontal vanes dropped from their upward slant to a straight line with the vanes.

"Rudders," he said, "horizontal rudders. Can't be anything else." With his chin in his hand and his wrinkled brow creased with deeper corrugations, he put his mind through a process of inductive reasoning.

"Horizontal rudders," he mused, "must be to keep her from diving, or to make her dive. They work automatically, and I s'pose the vertical rudders are the same. There's nothing outside to turn 'em with. That boat isn't made to ride in,--no way to get into her,--and she isn't big enough, anyhow. And as you can't get into her, that bra.s.s lever must be what starts and stops her. Wonder what the steel blade's for. 'T isn't a handy shape for a lever,--to be handled with fingers,--too sharp; but it has work to do, or it wouldn't be there. That section o' railroad iron on top must be to hang the boat by,--a traveler,--when she's out o' water.

"And the fan-wheel on the nose--what's that for? If it's a speed or distance indicator, the dial's inside, out o' sight. There's no exhaust, so the motive power can't be steam. Clockwork or electricity, maybe. Mighty fine workmans.h.i.+p all through! That square door is fitted in for keeps, and she must ha' cost a heap. Now, as she has horizontal rudders, she's intended to steer up and down; and as there's no way to get into her or to stay on her, and as she can't be started from the inside or steered from the outside, I take it she's a model o' one o'

those submarine boats I've heard of--some fellow's invention that's got away from him. Guess I'll try that lever and see what happens. I'll bury the propellers, though; no engine ought to race."

He pushed the craft into deeper water, pointed it sh.o.r.eward, and cautiously lifted the curved blade to a perpendicular position, as high as it would go. Nothing happened. He lowered it, raised it again,--it worked very easily,--then, leaving it upright, he threw the long bra.s.s lever back into the slot. A slight humming came from within, the propellers revolved slowly, and the craft moved ahead until the bow grounded. Then he followed and lifted the lever out of the slot to its first position, shutting off the power.

Delighted with his success, he backed it out farther than before and again threw back the bra.s.s lever, this time with the curved blade down flat on the hull. With the sinking of the lever into the slot the mechanism within gave forth a rus.h.i.+ng sound, the propellers at the stern threw up a mound of foam, and the craft shot past him, dived until it glanced on the sandy bottom, then slid a third of its length out of water on the beach and stopped, the propellers still churning, and the small wheel on the nose still spinning with the motion given it by the water.

"Air-pressure!" he exclaimed, as he shut it off. He had seen a line of bubbles rise as the thing dived. "An air-engine, and the whole thing must be full o' compressed air. The bra.s.s lever turns it on, and if the steel blade's up it gives it the slow motion; if it's down, she gets full speed at once. Now I know why it's blade-shaped. It's so the water itself can push it down--after she starts."

He did not try to launch it; he waited until the tide floated it, then pushed it along the beach toward his store of food, arriving at high water too exhausted to do more that day than ground his capture and break hard bread. And as the afternoon drew to a close the fatigue in his limbs became racking pain; either as a result of his exposure, or as a later symptom of the fever, he was now in the clutch of a new enemy--rheumatism.

Then, with the coming of night came a return of his first violent symptoms; he was hot, s.h.i.+very, and feverish by turns, with dry tongue and throat, and a splitting headache; but in this condition he could still take cognizance of a black, ram-bowed gunboat, which stole into the bay from the east and dropped anchor near the buoys.

A half-moon shone in the western sky, and by its light the steamer presented an unkempt, broken appearance, even to the untrained eye of this castaway. Her after-funnel was but half as high as the other; there were gaps in her iron rail, and vacancies below the twisted davits where boats should be; and her pilot-house was wrecked--the starboard door and nearest window merged in a large, ragged hole.

Officers on the bridge gave orders in foreign speech, in tones which came sh.o.r.eward faintly. Men sprang overboard with ropes, which they fastened to the buoys; then they swam back, and for an hour or two the whole crew was busy getting the boats to the davits and the end of the cable into the hawse-pipe.

The man on the beach recognized the craft he had seen when he wakened.

He felt that she must in some way be connected with his being there, and he waited, expecting to see a boat put off; but when both boats were hoisted and he heard the humming of a steam-windla.s.s, he gave up this expectation and tried to hail.

His voice could not rise above a hoa.r.s.e whisper. The anchor was fished, and after an interval he heard the windla.s.s again, heaving in the other chain. They were going away--going to leave him there to die.

He crawled and stumbled down to the water's edge. The tide was up again, rippling around the strange thing he had resolved to navigate.

It was not a boat, but it would go ahead, and it would float--it would possibly float him.

With strength born of desperation and fear, he pushed it, inch by inch, into the water until it was clear of the sand, and tried the engine on the slow motion. The propellers turned and satisfied him. He shut off the power, swung the thing round until it pointed toward the steamer, and seated himself astride of it, just abaft the T-shaped projection in the middle. The long cylinder sank with him, and when it had steadied to a balance between his weight and its buoyancy he found that it bore him, shoulders out; and the position he had taken--within reach of the levers behind him--lifted the blunt nose higher than the stern, but not out of water. This was practicable.

He reached behind, raised the blade lever, threw back the large bra.s.s lever, and the craft went ahead, at about the speed of a healthy man's walk. He kept his left hand on the blade lever to hold it up, and by skilful paddling with his right maintained his balance and a.s.sisted his legs in steering. He had never learned to swim, but he felt less fear of drowning than of slow death on the island.

In five minutes he was near enough to the steamer to read her name. He pulled the starting-lever forward, stopping his headway; for he must be sure of his welcome.

"Say, boss," he called faintly and hoa.r.s.ely, "take me along, can't you?

Or else gi' me some medicine. I'm blamed sick--I'll die if I stay here."

The noise of the windla.s.s and chain prevented this being heard, but at last, after repeated calls on his part, a Spanish howl went up from amids.h.i.+ps, and a sailor sprang from one of the boats to the deck, crossed himself, and pointing to the man in the water, ran forward.

"Madre de Dios!" he yelled. "El aparecido del muerto."

Work stopped, and a call down a hatchway stopped the windla.s.s. In ports and dead-lights appeared faces; and those on deck, officers and men, crowded to the rail, some to cross themselves, some to sink on their knees, others to grip the rail tightly, while they stared in silence at the torso and livid face in the moonlight on the sea--the ghastly face of the man they had marooned to die alone, who had been seen later dead on the beach.

"Take me with you, boss," he pleaded with his weak voice. "I'm sick; I can't hold on much longer."

It was not the dead man's body washed out from the beach, for it moved, it spoke. And it was not a living man; no man may recover from advanced yellow fever, and this man had been found afterward, dead--cold and still. And no living man may swim in this manner--high out of water, patting and splas.h.i.+ng with one hand. It was a ghost. It had come to punish them.

"Por que nos atormentan asi, hombre, deja?" cried a white-faced officer.

"Can't you hear me?" asked the apparition. "I'll come closer."

He threw back the starting-lever, and the thing began moving. Then a rifle-barrel protruded from a dead-light. There was a report and a flash, and a bullet pa.s.sed through his hair. The shock startled him, and he lost his balance. In the effort to recover it his leg knocked down the blade lever, and the steel cylinder sprang forward, leaving him floundering in the water. Pointed upward, it appeared for a moment on the surface, then dived like a porpoise and disappeared. In five seconds something happened to the gunboat.

Coincident with a sound like near-by thunder, the black craft lifted amids.h.i.+ps like a bending jack-knife, and up from the shattered deck, and out from ports, doors, and dead-lights, came a volcano of flame and smoke. The sea beneath followed in a mound, which burst like a great bubble, sending a cloud of steam and spray and whitish-yellow smoke aloft to mingle with the first and meet the falling fragments. These fell for several seconds--hatches, gratings, buckets, ladders, splinters of wood, parts of men, and men whole, but limp.

A side-ladder fell near the choking and half-stunned sick man, and he seized it. Before he could crawl on top the two halves of the gunboat had sunk in a swirl of bubbles and whirlpools.

A few broken and bleeding swimmers approached to share his support, saw his awful face in the moonlight, and swam away.

A few hours later a gray cruiser loomed up close by and directed a search-light at him. Then a gray cutter full of white-clad men approached and took him off the ladder. He was delirious again, and bleeding from mouth, nose, and ears.

The surgeon and the torpedo-lieutenant came up from the sick-bay, the latter with enthusiasm on his face,--for he was young,--and joined a group of officers on the quarterdeck.

"He'll pull through, gentlemen," said the surgeon. "He is the man Mosher lost overboard, though he doesn't know anything about it, nor how he got on that sand-key. I suppose the _Destructor_ picked him up and landed him. He found bread and water, he says. You see, the first symptoms are similar in Yellow Jack and relapsing bilious fever.

I don't wonder that Mosher was nervous."

"Then it _was_ the _Destructor_?" asked an ensign, pulling out a note-book and a pencil. "And Lieutenant Mosher was right, after all?"

"Yes; this man read her name before she blew up; and a Spanish sailor has waked up and confirmed it. She was the _Destructor_, just over, and trying to get into Havana. Instead of blowing up in Algeciras Bay, as they thought, she had left with despatches for Havana, only to blow up on the Florida Reef."

"The _Destructor_," said the ensign, as he pocketed his note-book and pencil, "carried fifty-five men. Don't we get the bounty as the nearest craft?"

"Not much," said the young and enthusiastic torpedo-lieutenant. "We were not even within signal distance, and came along by accident.

Listen, all of you. When an American war-craft sinks or destroys a larger enemy, there is a bounty due her crew of two hundred dollars for every man on board the enemy. That is law, isn't it?" They nodded. "If a submarine boat can be a war-craft, so may a Whitehead torpedo, and certainly is one, being built for war. A war-craft abandoned is a derelict, and the man who finds her becomes her lawful commander for the time. If he belongs to the navy his position is strengthened, and if he is alone he is not only commander, but the whole crew, and consequently he is ent.i.tled to all the bounty she may earn. That is law.

"Now, listen hard. Lieutenant Mosher sent one torpedo at the gunboat; it missed and became derelict, while Mosher escaped under one boiler.

This man found the derelict adrift, puzzled out the action, waited until the gunboat came back for her anchor, then straddled his craft, and rode out with the water-tripper up. They shot at him. He turned his dog loose and destroyed the enemy. If the _Destructor_ carried fifty-five men he is ent.i.tled to eleven thousand dollars, and the government must pay, for that is law."

THE BATTLE OF THE MONSTERS

Extract from hospital record of the case of John Anderson, patient of Dr. Brown, Ward 3, Room 6:

August 3. Arrived at hospital in extreme mental distress, having been bitten on wrist three hours previously by dog known to have been rabid. Large, strong man, full-blooded and well nourished.