Part 3 (1/2)
”Sonny, I'll choose you; you're on my watch,” said the Captain to Wilbur, ”and I will assoom the ree-sponsibility of your nautical eddoocation”
”I an Wilbur, ”that I'm no sailor”
”But you will be, soon,” answered the Captain, at once soothing and threatening; ”you will be, Mister Lilee of the Vallee, you kin lay to it as how you will be one of the best sailorit throo with you, you'll be a sailorman or shark-bait, I can promise you You're on my watch; step over here, son”
The watches were divided, Charlie and three other Chinamen on the port, Kitchell, Wilbur, and two Chinaain
The tiny world of the schooner had lapsed to quiet The ”Bertha Millner”
was now clear of the land, that lay like a blur of faintest purple s fainter--low in the east The Farallones showed but their shoulders above the horizon The schooner was standing well out from shore--even beyond the track of the coasters and passenger steamers--to catch the Trades fro royally, and the floor of the ocean shi+one down and the fury of the bar was a thing forgotten It was perceptibly war opiua down the decks with kaiar brooms For the first time since he had come on board Wilbur heard the sound of their voices
The evening was nificent Never to Wilbur's eyes had the Pacific appeared so vast, so radiant, so divinely beautiful A star or two burned slowly through that part of the sky where the pink began to fade into the blue Charlie went forward and set the side lights--red on the port rigging, green on the starboard As he passed Wilbur, as leaning over the rail and watching the phosphorus flashi+ng just under the surface, he said:
”Hey, you go talkee-talk one-piecey Boss, savvy Boss--chin-chin”
Wilbur went aft and came up on the poop, where Kitchell stood at the wheel, san Kitchell, ”I natch'ly love you so that I'oin' to allow you to berth aft in the cabin, 'long o' me an' Charlie, an' beesides you can make free of my quarterdeck Mebbee you ain't used to the ways of sailormen just yet, but you can lay to it that those two are reel concessions, savvy?
I ain't a mush-head, like uess that with one hand tied beehind me You're a toff, that's what you are, and your lines has been laid for toffs I ain't askin' you no questions, but you got brains, an' I figger on gettin'
more outa you by lettin' you have y'r head a bit But ay once, sonny, or try to fliet that I'm the boss of the bathtub, an' strike me blind, I'll cut you open, an' you can lay to that, son Now, then, here's the ga with the coolies, an' take ation, an' make this cruise as easy as how-do-you-do You don't, an' I'll manhandle you till y'r bones come throo y'r hide”
”I've no choice in the ot to make the best of a bad situation”
”I ree-marked as how you had brains,” ,” continued Wilbur; ”if I'et along better if you put ht aboard, why are there only Chinese along, where are we going, what are we going to do, and how long are we going to be gone?”
Kitchell spat over the side, and then sucked the nicotine fro his pipe, ”it's like this, son This shi+p belongs to one of the Six Chinese Companies of Chinatown in Frisco
Charlie, here, is one of the shareholders in the business We go down here twice a year off Cape Sain' Lucas, Lower California, an' fish for blue sharks, or white, if we kin ketch 'eet the livers of these an' try out the oil, an' we bring back that same oil, an' the Chinamen sell it all over San Francisco as simon-pure cod-liver oil, savvy?
An' it pays like a nitrate bed I coulation that no coolie can take a boat out of Frisco”
”And how do I come in?” asked Wilbur
”Mee dear friend Jim put a knock-me-out drop into your Manhattan cocktail It's a capsule filled with a drug You were shanghaied, son,”
said the Captain, blandly
About an hour later Wilbur turned in Kitchell showed hile ill-s blanket It was located under the companionway that led down into the cabin Kitchell bunked on one side, Charlie on the other A hacked deal table, covered with oilcloth and ironed to the floor, a swinging-la picture cut from the advertisement of a ballet, was the room's inventory in the e of his bunk before undressing, reviewing the extraordinary events of the day In a moment he are of a movement in one of the other two bunks, and presentlyin the flame of an alcohol lamp a skewer on which some brown and sticky stuff boiled and sizzled He transfore pipe and drew on it noisily once or twice In another moment he had sunk back in his bunk, nearly senseless, but with a long breath of an almost blissful contentust
He threw off his oilskin coat and felt in the pocket of his waistcoat (which he had retained when he had changed his clothes in the fo'c'sle) for his watch He drew it out It was just nine o'clock All at once an idea occurred to hiht out one of his calling-cards
For a e, slance wandered now to the sordid cabin of the ”Bertha Millner” and the opiued coolie sprawled on the ”donkey's breakfast,” and now to the card in his hand on which a few hours ago he had written: