The Open Boat and Other Stories
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 northwards.
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 north-east 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 colour 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 north-west. 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-shute, 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
lit with the beautiful phosphorescent glamour went boiling and howling
along 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 conditions.
The engineer shook his head dejectedly. "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 just do 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 towards 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."
Afterwards Flanagan turned to the chief engineer. "We can never beach,"
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 sword-play. 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 stoke-room, and what he saw as he swung
down the companion suddenly turned him hesitant and dumb. 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 grey 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. The terrified machinery was making
gestures.
But Flanagan took control of himself suddenly. Then he stirred the
fire-room. 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 fire-room 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 two bobbing
boats paused to witness this quiet death. It was a slow manoeuvre,
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 hand on
the gunwale. He sobbed for a time, and then he sobbed and swore also.
* * * * *
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 off shore. It was a
charming dance, and none cared to take time to believe this tale. The
fountain in the court-yard splashed softly, and couple after couple
paraded through the aisles of palms, where lamps with red shades threw
a rose light upon the gleaming leaves. The band played its waltzes
slumberously, and its music came faintly to the people among the palms.
Sometimes a woman said--"Oh, it is not really true, is it, that there
was a wreck out at sea?"
A man usually said--"No, of course not."
At last, however, a youth came violently from the beach. He was
triumphant in manner. "They're out there," he cried. "A whole
boat-load!" He received eager attention, and he told all that he
supposed. His news destroyed the dance. After a time the band was
playing beautifully to space. The guests had hurried to the beach. One
little girl cried, "Oh, mamma, may I go too?" Being refused permission
she pouted.
As they came from the shelter of the great hotel, the wind was blowing
swiftly from the sea, and at intervals a breaker shone livid. The women
shuddered, and their bending companions seized the opportunity to draw
the cloaks closer.
"Oh, dear!" said a girl; "supposin' they were out there drowning while
we were dancing!"
"Oh, nonsense!" said her younger brother; "that don't happen."
"Well, it might, you know, Roger. How can you tell?"
A man who was not her brother gazed at her then with profound
admiration. Later, she complained of the damp sand, and, drawing back
her skirts, looked ruefully at her little feet.
A mother's son was venturing too near to the water in his interest and
excitement. Occasionally she cautioned and reproached him from the
background.
Save for the white glare of the breakers, the sea was a great
wind-crossed void. From the throng of charming women floated the
perfume of many flowers. Later there floated to them a body with a calm
face of an Irish type. The expedition of the _Foundling_ will never be
historic.
HORSES
Richardson pulled up his horse, and looked back over the trail where
the crimson serape of his servant flamed amid the dusk of the mesquit.
The hills in the west were carved into peaks, and were painted the
most profound blue. Above them the sky was of that marvellous tone of
green--like still, sun-shot water--which people denounce in pictures.
José was muffled deep in his blanket, and his great toppling sombrero
was drawn low over his brow. He shadowed his master along the dimming
trail in the fashion of an assassin. A cold wind of the impending night
swept over the wilderness of mesquit.
"Man," said Richardson in lame Mexican as the servant drew near, "I
want eat! I want sleep! Understand--no? Quickly! Understand?"
"Si, señor," said José, nodding. He stretched one arm out of his
blanket and pointed a yellow finger into the gloom. "Over there, small
village. Si, señor."
They rode forward again. Once the American's horse shied and breathed
quiveringly at something which he saw or imagined in the darkness,
and the rider drew a steady, patient rein, and leaned over to speak
tenderly as if he were addressing a frightened woman. The sky had faded
to white over the mountains, and the plain was a vast, pointless ocean
of black.
Suddenly some low houses appeared squatting amid the bushes. The
horsemen rode into a hollow until the houses rose against the sombre
sundown sky, and then up a small hillock, causing these habitations to
sink like boats in the sea of shadow.
A beam of red firelight fell across the trail. Richardson sat sleepily
on his horse while his servant quarrelled with somebody--a mere voice
in the gloom--over the price of bed and board. The houses about him
were for the most part like tombs in their whiteness and silence, but
there were scudding black figures that seemed interested in his arrival.
José came at last to the horses' heads, and the American slid stiffly
from his seat. He muttered a greeting, as with his spurred feet he
clicked into the adobe house that confronted him. The brown stolid face
of a woman shone in the light of the fire. He seated himself on the
earthen floor and blinked drowsily at the blaze. He was aware that the
woman was clinking earthenware, and hieing here and everywhere in the
manoeuvres of the housewife. From a dark corner there came the sound
of two or three snores twining together.
The woman handed him a bowl of tortillas. She was a submissive
creature, timid and large-eyed. She gazed at his enormous silver spurs,
his large and impressive revolver, with the interest and admiration
of the highly-privileged cat of the adage. When he ate, she seemed
transfixed off there in the gloom, her white teeth shining.
José entered, staggering under two Mexican saddles, large enough for
building-sites. Richardson decided to smoke a cigarette, and then
changed his mind. It would be much finer to go to sleep. His blanket
hung over his left shoulder, furled into a long pipe of cloth,
according to the Mexican fashion. By doffing his sombrero, unfastening
his spurs and his revolver belt, he made himself ready for the slow,
blissful twist into the blanket. Like a cautious man he lay close to
the wall, and all his property was very near his hand.