Where Angels Fear to Tread | Page 9

get it; they are well-behaved, well-licked soldiers when they leave.
An Oswego sailor loves a row. He is possessed by the fighting spirit of
a bulldog; he inherits it with his Irish sense of injury; he sucks it in with
his mother's milk, and drinks it in with his whisky; and when no
enemies are near, he will fight his friends. Pay them off? Not much.
I've taken sixteen of those devils round the Horn, and I'll take them
back. I'm proud of them. Just look at them," he concluded vivaciously,
as he waved his hand at his men; "docile and obedient, down on their
knees with bibles and prayer-books."
"And the name o' the Lord on their lips," grunted the adviser; "but not
in prayer, I'll bet you."
"Hardly," laughed Captain Benson. "Come below, gentlemen; the
steward is ready."

From lack of facilities the mild-faced and smiling steward could not
serve that dinner with the style which it deserved. He would have liked,
he explained, as they seated themselves, to bring it on in separate
courses; but one and all disclaimed such frivolity. The dinner was there,
and that was enough. And it was a splendid dinner. In front of Captain
Benson, at the head of the table, stood a large tureen of smoking
terrapin-stew; next to that a stuffed and baked freshly caught fish; and
waiting their turn in the center of the spread, a couple of brace of wild
geese from the inland lakes, brown and glistening, oyster-dressed and
savory. Farther along was a steaming plum-pudding, overhead on a
swinging tray a dozen bottles of wine, by the captain's elbow a decanter
of yellow fluid, and before each man's plate a couple of glasses of
different size.
"We'll start off with an appetizer, gentlemen," said the host, as he
passed the decanter to his neighbor. "Here is some of the best Dutch
courage ever distilled; try it."
The decanter went around, each filling his glass and holding it poised;
then, when all were supplied, they drank to the grizzled old captain's
toast: "A speedy and pleasant passage home for the Almena, and further
confusion to her misguided crew." The captain responded gracefully,
and began serving the stew, which the steward took from him plate by
plate, and passed around.
But, either because thirteen men had sat down to that table, or because
the Fates were unusually freakish that day, it was destined that, beyond
the initial glass of whisky, not a man present should partake of Captain
Benson's dinner. On deck things had been happening, and just as the
host had filled the last plate for himself, a wet, bedraggled, dirty little
man, his tarry clothing splashed with the slime of the deck, his eyes
flaming green, his face expanded to a smile of ferocity, appeared in the
forward doorway, holding a cocked revolver which covered them all.
Behind him in the passage were other men, equally unkempt, their eyes
wide open with excitement and anticipation.
"Don't ye move," yelped the little man, "not a man. Keep yer hands out
o' yer pockets. Put 'em over yer heads. That's it. You too, cappen."

They obeyed him (there was death in the green eyes and smile), all but
one. Captain Benson sprang to his feet, with a hand in his breast
pocket.
"You scoundrels!" he cried, as he drew forth a pistol. "Leave this----"
The speech was stopped by a report, deafening in the closed-up space;
and Captain Benson fell heavily, his pistol rattling on the floor.
"Hang me up, will ye?" growled another voice through the smoke.
In the after-door were more men, the red-haired Seldom Helward in the
van, holding a smoking pistol. "Get the gun, one o' you fellows over
there," he called.
A man stepped in and picked up the pistol, which he cocked.
"One by one," said Seldom, his voice rising to the pitch and timbre of a
trumpet-blast, "you men walk out the forward companionway with your
hands over your heads. Plug them, Sinful, if two move together, and
shoot to kill."
Taken by surprise, the guests, resolute men though they were, obeyed
the command. As each rose to his feet, he was first relieved of a bright
revolver, which served to increase the moral front of the enemy, then
led out to the booby-hatch, on which lay a newly broached coil of
hambro-line and pile of thole-pins from the boatswain's locker. Here he
was searched again for jack-knife or brass knuckles, bound with the
hambro-line, gagged with a thole-pin, and marched forward, past the
prostrate first mate, who lay quiet in the scuppers, and the erect but
agonized second mate, gagged and bound to the fife-rail, to the port
forecastle, where he was locked in with the Chinese cook, who,
similarly treated, had