CHAPTER I.
Out to Sea
I had this story from one who had
no business to tell it to me, or to any other. I may credit the seductive
influence of an old vintage upon the narrator for the beginning of it, and my
own skeptical incredulity during the days that followed for the balance of the
strange tale.
When my convivial host discovered
that he had told me so much, and that I was prone to doubtfulness, his foolish
pride assumed the task the old vintage had commenced, and so he unearthed
written evidence in the form of musty manuscript, and dry official records of
the British Colonial Office to support many of the salient features of his
remarkable narrative.
I do not say the story is true,
for I did not witness the happenings which it portrays, but the fact that in
the telling of it to you I have taken fictitious names for the principal
characters quite sufficiently evidences the sincerity of my own belief that it
may be true.
The yellow, mildewed pages of the
diary of a man long dead, and the records of the Colonial Office dovetail
perfectly with the narrative of my convivial host, and so I give you the story
as I painstakingly pieced it out from these several various agencies.
If you do not find it credible
you will at least be as one with me in acknowledging that it is unique, remarkable,
and interesting.
From the records of the Colonial
Office and from the dead man’s diary we learn that a certain young English
nobleman, whom we shall call John Clayton, Lord Greystoke, was commissioned to
make a peculiarly delicate investigation of conditions in a British West Coast
African Colony from whose simple native inhabitants another European power was
known to be recruiting soldiers for its native army, which it used solely for
the forcible collection of rubber and ivory from the savage tribes along the
Congo and the Aruwimi. The natives of the British Colony complained that many
of their young men were enticed away through the medium of fair and glowing
promises, but that few if any ever returned to their families.
The Englishmen in Africa went
even further, saying that these poor blacks were held in virtual slavery, since
after their terms of enlistment expired their ignorance was imposed upon by
their white officers, and they were told that they had yet several years to
serve.
And so the Colonial Office
appointed John Clayton to a new post in British West Africa, but his
confidential instructions centered on a thorough investigation of the unfair
treatment of black British subjects by the officers of a friendly European
power. Why he was sent, is, however, of little moment to this story, for he
never made an investigation, nor, in fact, did he ever reach his destination.
Clayton was the type of
Englishman that one likes best to associate with the noblest monuments of
historic achievement upon a thousand victorious battlefields—a strong, virile
man—mentally, morally, and physically.
In stature he was above the
average height; his eyes were gray, his features regular and strong; his
carriage that of perfect, robust health influenced by his years of army
training.
Political ambition had caused him
to seek transference from the army to the Colonial Office and so we find him,
still young, entrusted with a delicate and important commission in the service
of the Queen.
When he received this appointment
he was both elated and appalled. The preferment seemed to him in the nature of
a well-merited reward for painstaking and intelligent service, and as a
stepping stone to posts of greater importance and responsibility; but, on the
other hand, he had been married to the Hon. Alice Rutherford for scarce a three
months, and it was the thought of taking this fair young girl into the dangers
and isolation of tropical Africa that appalled him.
For her sake he would have
refused the appointment, but she would not have it so. Instead she insisted
that he accept, and, indeed, take her with him.
There were mothers and brothers
and sisters, and aunts and cousins to express various opinions on the subject,
but as to what they severally advised history is silent.
We know only that on a bright May
morning in 1888, John, Lord Greystoke, and Lady Alice sailed from Dover on
their way to Africa.
A month later they arrived at
Freetown where they chartered a small sailing vessel, the Fuwalda, which was to
bear them to their final destination.
And here John, Lord Greystoke,
and Lady Alice, his wife, vanished from the eyes and from the knowledge of men.
Two months after they weighed
anchor and cleared from the port of Freetown a half dozen British war vessels
were scouring the south Atlantic for trace of them or their little vessel, and
it was almost immediately that the wreckage was found upon the shores of St.
Helena which convinced the world that the Fuwalda had gone down with all on
board, and hence the search was stopped ere it had scarce begun; though hope
lingered in longing hearts for many years.
The Fuwalda, a barkentine of
about one hundred tons, was a vessel of the type often seen in coastwise trade
in the far southern Atlantic, their crews composed of the offscourings of the
sea—unhanged murderers and cutthroats of every race and every nation.
The Fuwalda was no exception to
the rule. Her officers were swarthy bullies, hating and hated by their crew.
The captain, while a competent seaman, was a brute in his treatment of his men.
He knew, or at least he used, but two arguments in his dealings with them—a
belaying pin and a revolver—nor is it likely that the motley aggregation he
signed would have understood aught else.
So it was that from the second
day out from Freetown John Clayton and his young wife witnessed scenes upon the
deck of the Fuwalda such as they had believed were never enacted outside the
covers of printed stories of the sea.
It was on the morning of the
second day that the first link was forged in what was destined to form a chain
of circumstances ending in a life for one then unborn such as has never been
paralleled in the history of man.
Two sailors were washing down the
decks of the Fuwalda, the first mate was on duty, and the captain had stopped
to speak with John Clayton and Lady Alice.
The men were working backwards
toward the little party who were facing away from the sailors. Closer and
closer they came, until one of them was directly behind the captain. In another
moment he would have passed by and this strange narrative would never have been
recorded.
But just that instant the officer
turned to leave Lord and Lady Greystoke, and, as he did so, tripped against the
sailor and sprawled headlong upon the deck, overturning the water-pail so that
he was drenched in its dirty contents.
For an instant the scene was
ludicrous; but only for an instant. With a volley of awful oaths, his face
suffused with the scarlet of mortification and rage, the captain regained his
feet, and with a terrific blow felled the sailor to the deck.
The man was small and rather old,
so that the brutality of the act was thus accentuated. The other seaman,
however, was neither old nor small—a huge bear of a man, with fierce black
mustachios, and a great bull neck set between massive shoulders.
As he saw his mate go down he
crouched, and, with a low snarl, sprang upon the captain crushing him to his
knees with a single mighty blow.
From scarlet the officer’s face
went white, for this was mutiny; and mutiny he had met and subdued before in
his brutal career. Without waiting to rise he whipped a revolver from his
pocket, firing point blank at the great mountain of muscle towering before him;
but, quick as he was, John Clayton was almost as quick, so that the bullet
which was intended for the sailor’s heart lodged in the sailor’s leg instead,
for Lord Greystoke had struck down the captain’s arm as he had seen the weapon
flash in the sun.
Words passed between Clayton and
the captain, the former making it plain that he was disgusted with the
brutality displayed toward the crew, nor would he countenance anything further
of the kind while he and Lady Greystoke remained passengers.
The captain was on the point of
making an angry reply, but, thinking better of it, turned on his heel and black
and scowling, strode aft.
He did not care to antagonize an
English official, for the Queen’s mighty arm wielded a punitive instrument
which he could appreciate, and which he feared—England’s far-reaching navy.
The two sailors picked themselves
up, the older man assisting his wounded comrade to rise. The big fellow, who
was known among his mates as Black Michael, tried his leg gingerly, and,
finding that it bore his weight, turned to Clayton with a word of gruff thanks.
Though the fellow’s tone was
surly, his words were evidently well meant. Ere he had scarce finished his
little speech he had turned and was limping off toward the forecastle with the
very apparent intention of forestalling any further conversation.
They did not see him again for
several days, nor did the captain accord them more than the surliest of grunts
when he was forced to speak to them.
They took their meals in his
cabin, as they had before the unfortunate occurrence; but the captain was
careful to see that his duties never permitted him to eat at the same time.
The other officers were coarse,
illiterate fellows, but little above the villainous crew they bullied, and were
only too glad to avoid social intercourse with the polished English noble and
his lady, so that the Claytons were left very much to themselves.
This in itself accorded perfectly
with their desires, but it also rather isolated them from the life of the
little ship so that they were unable to keep in touch with the daily happenings
which were to culminate so soon in bloody tragedy.
There was in the whole atmosphere
of the craft that undefinable something which presages disaster. Outwardly, to
the knowledge of the Claytons, all went on as before upon the little vessel;
but that there was an undertow leading them toward some unknown danger both
felt, though they did not speak of it to each other.
On the second day after the
wounding of Black Michael, Clayton came on deck just in time to see the limp
body of one of the crew being carried below by four of his fellows while the
first mate, a heavy belaying pin in his hand, stood glowering at the little
party of sullen sailors.
Clayton asked no questions—he did
not need to—and the following day, as the great lines of a British battleship
grew out of the distant horizon, he half determined to demand that he and Lady
Alice be put aboard her, for his fears were steadily increasing that nothing
but harm could result from remaining on the lowering, sullen Fuwalda.
Toward noon they were within
speaking distance of the British vessel, but when Clayton had nearly decided to
ask the captain to put them aboard her, the obvious ridiculousness of such a
request became suddenly apparent. What reason could he give the officer
commanding her majesty’s ship for desiring to go back in the direction from
which he had just come!
What if he told them that two
insubordinate seamen had been roughly handled by their officers? They would but
laugh in their sleeves and attribute his reason for wishing to leave the ship
to but one thing—cowardice.
John Clayton, Lord Greystoke, did
not ask to be transferred to the British man-of-war. Late in the afternoon he
saw her upper works fade below the far horizon, but not before he learned that
which confirmed his greatest fears, and caused him to curse the false pride
which had restrained him from seeking safety for his young wife a few short
hours before, when safety was within reach—a safety which was now gone forever.
It was mid-afternoon that brought
the little old sailor, who had been felled by the captain a few days before, to
where Clayton and his wife stood by the ship’s side watching the ever
diminishing outlines of the great battleship. The old fellow was polishing
brasses, and as he came edging along until close to Clayton he said, in an
undertone:
“’Ell’s to pay, sir, on this ’ere
craft, an’ mark my word for it, sir. ’Ell’s to pay.”
“What do you mean, my good
fellow?” asked Clayton.
“Wy, hasn’t ye seen wats goin’
on? Hasn’t ye ’eard that devil’s spawn of a capting an’ is mates knockin’ the
bloomin’ lights outen ’arf the crew?
“Two busted ’eads yeste’day, an’
three to-day. Black Michael’s as good as new agin an’ ’e’s not the bully to
stand fer it, not ’e; an’ mark my word for it, sir.”
“You mean, my man, that the crew
contemplates mutiny?” asked Clayton.