CHAPTER XXII
Something has happened. But nobody knows, either fore or aft, except
the interested persons, and they will not say anything. Yet the ship
is abuzz with rumours and guesses.
This I do know: Mr. Pike has received a fearful blow on the head.
At table, yesterday, at midday, I arrived late, and, passing behind
his chair, I saw a prodigious lump on top of his head. When I was
seated, facing him, I noted that his eyes seemed dazed; yes, and I
could see pain in them. He took no part in the conversation, ate
perfunctorily, behaved stupidly at times, and it was patent that he
was controlling himself with an iron hand.
And nobody dares ask him what has happened. I know I don't dare ask
him, and I am a passenger, a privileged person. This redoubtable old
sea-relic has inspired me with a respect for him that partakes half
of timidity and half of awe.
He acts as if he were suffering from concussion of the brain. His
pain is evident, not alone in his eyes and the strained expression of
his face, but by his conduct when he thinks he is unobserved. Last
night, just for a breath of air and a moment's gaze at the stars, I
came out of the cabin door and stood on the main deck under the break
of the poop. From directly over my head came a low and persistent
groaning. My curiosity was aroused, and I retreated into the cabin,
came out softly on to the poop by way of the chart-house, and
strolled noiselessly for'ard in my slippers. It was Mr. Pike. He
was leaning collapsed on the rail, his head resting on his arms. He
was giving voice in secret to the pain that racked him. A dozen feet
away he could not be heard. But, close to his shoulder, I could hear
his steady, smothered groaning that seemed to take the form of a
chant. Also, at regular intervals, he would mutter:
"Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, oh dear." Always he repeated
the phrase five times, then returned to his groaning. I stole away
as silently as I had come.
Yet he resolutely stands his watches and performs all his duties of
chief officer. Oh, I forgot. Miss West dared to quiz him, and he
replied that he had a toothache, and that if it didn't get better
he'd pull it out.
Wada cannot learn what has happened. There were no eye-witnesses.
He says that the Asiatic clique, discussing the affair in the cook's
room, thinks the three gangsters are responsible. Bert Rhine is
carrying a lame shoulder. Nosey Murphy is limping as from some
injury in the hips. And Kid Twist has been so badly beaten that he
has not left his bunk for two days. And that is all the data to
build on. The gangsters are as close-mouthed as Mr. Pike. The
Asiatic clique has decided that murder was attempted and that all
that saved the mate was his hard skull.
Last evening, in the second dog-watch, I got another proof that
Captain West is not so oblivious of what goes on aboard the Elsinore
as he seems. I had gone for'ard along the bridge to the mizzen-mast,
in the shadow of which I was leaning. From the main deck, in the
alley-way between the 'midship-house and the rail, came the voices of
Bert Rhine, Nosey Murphy, and Mr. Mellaire. It was not ship's work.
They were having a friendly, even sociable chat, for their voices
hummed genially, and now and again one or another laughed, and
sometimes all laughed.
I remembered Wada's reports on this unseamanlike intimacy of the
second mate with the gangsters, and tried to make out the nature of
the conversation. But the gangsters were low-voiced, and all I could
catch was the tone of friendliness and good-nature.
Suddenly, from the poop, came Captain West's voice. It was the
voice, not of the Samurai riding the storm, but of the Samurai calm
and cold. It was clear, soft, and mellow as the mellowest bell ever
cast by eastern artificers of old time to call worshippers to prayer.
I know I slightly chilled to it--it was so exquisitely sweet and yet
as passionless as the ring of steel on a frosty night. And I knew
the effect on the men beneath me was electrical. I could FEEL them
stiffen and chill to it as I had stiffened and chilled. And yet all
he said was:
"Mr. Mellaire."
"Yes, sir," answered Mr. Mellaire, after a moment of tense silence.
"Come aft here," came Captain West's voice.
I heard the second mate move along the deck beneath me and stop at
the foot of the poop-ladder.
"Your place is aft on the poop, Mr. Mellaire," said the cold,
passionless voice.
"Yes, sir," answered the second mate.
That was all. Not another word was spoken. Captain West resumed his
stroll on the weather side of the poop, and Mr. Mellaire, ascending
the ladder, went to pacing up and down the lee side.
I continued along the bridge to the forecastle head and purposely
remained there half an hour ere I returned to the cabin by way of the
main deck. Although I did not analyze my motive, I knew I did not
desire any one to know that I had overheard the occurrence.
I have made a discovery. Ninety per cent. of our crew is brunette.
Aft, with the exception of Wada and the steward, who are our
servants, we are all blonds. What led me to this discovery was
Woodruff's Effects of Tropical Light on White Men, which I am just
reading. Major Woodruff's thesis is that the white-skinned, blue-
eyed Aryan, born to government and command, ever leaving his
primeval, overcast and foggy home, ever commands and governs the rest
of the world and ever perishes because of the too-white light he
encounters. It is a very tenable hypothesis, and will bear looking
into.
But to return. Every one of us who sits aft in the high place is a
blond Aryan. For'ard, leavened with a ten per cent, of degenerate
blonds, the remaining ninety per cent, of the slaves that toil for us
are brunettes. They will not perish. According to Woodruff, they
will inherit the earth, not because of their capacity for mastery and
government, but because of their skin-pigmentation which enables
their tissues to resist the ravages of the sun.
And I look at the four of us at table--Captain West, his daughter,
Mr. Pike, and myself--all fair-skinned, blue-eyed, and perishing, yet
mastering and commanding, like our fathers before us, to the end of
our type on the earth. Ah, well, ours is a lordly history, and
though we may be doomed to pass, in our time we shall have trod on
the faces of all peoples, disciplined them to obedience, taught them
government, and dwelt in the palaces we have compelled them by the
weight of our own right arms to build for us.
The Elsinore depicts this in miniature. The best of the food and all
spacious and beautiful accommodation is ours. For'ard is a pig-sty
and a slave-pen.
As a king, Captain West sits above all. As a captain of soldiers,
Mr. Pike enforces his king's will. Miss West is a princess of the
royal house. And I? Am I not an honourable, noble-lineaged
pensioner on the deeds and achievements of my father, who, in his
day, compelled thousands of the lesser types to the building of the
fortune I enjoy?
