XVII

After many days of ocean tramping with an occasional discharge of cargo at an out of the way port, the ship put in at Frisco. Here, after a clean up, a new cargo was taken aboard, also a new crew. This was a pretty scratch lot; the usual complement of Yankees, Dutchmen, dagoes, and an occasional Britisher.

For a long and trying fifteen months, Sailor continued on the seas, about all the oceans of the world. At the end of that time he was quite a different boy from the one who had left his native city of Blackhampton. Dagoes and niggers no longer did as they liked with him. He still had a strong dislike, it was true, to going aloft in a gale, but he invariably did as he was told to the best of his ability; he no longer skulked or showed the white feather in the presence of his mates. Nevertheless, he was always miserably unhappy. There was something in his nature that could not accept the hateful discomforts of a life before the mast, although from the day of his birth he had never known what it was to lie soft. He was in hell all the time. Moreover, he knew it and felt it to the inmost fiber of his being; the soul of Henry Harper was no longer derelict.

The sense of the miracle which had happened off the Island of San Pedro abided with him through gale and typhoon, through sunshine and darkness, through winter and summer. It didn't matter what the sea was doing, or the wind was saying, or the Old Man was threatening, a miracle had happened to Henry Harper. He had touched bed rock. He had seen things and he had learned things; man and nature, all the terrible and mysterious forces around him could do their worst, but he no longer feared them in the old craven way. Sailor had suffered a sea change. The things in earth and heaven he had looked upon none could share with him, not even Mr. Thompson, that strange and sinister man of the sea, to whom he owed what was called "his life"; nay, not even the Old Man himself who had lived six weeks on shellfish on the Island of San Pedro.

When the Margaret Carey had been to Australia and round the larger half of the world, she put in at Frisco again. Here she took another cargo and signed on fresh hands for a voyage round the Pacific Coast. Among the latter was a man called Klondyke. At least, that was the name he went by aboard the Margaret Carey, and was never called by any other. At first this individual puzzled Henry Harper considerably. He shared a berth with him in the half-deck, and the boy – now a grown man rising sixteen – armed with a curiosity that was perfectly insatiable, and a faculty of taking lively and particular notice, found a great deal to interest him in this new chum.

He was about twenty-four and a Britisher, although Sailor in common with most of his shipmates thought at first that he was a Yankee. For one thing, he was a new type aboard the Margaret Carey. Very obviously he knew little of the sea, but that didn't seem to trouble him. From the moment he set foot aboard, he showed that he could take good care of himself. It was not obtrusive but quietly efficient care that he took of himself, yet it seemed to bear upon the attitude of all with whom he had to do.

Klondyke knew nothing about a windjammer, but soon started in to learn. And it didn't seem to matter what ticklish or unpleasant jobs he was put to – jobs for which Sailor could never overcome a great dislike – he had always a remarkable air of being in this hard and perilous business merely for the good of his health.

Klondyke said he had never been aloft before in his life, and the first time he went up it was blowing hard from the northeast, yet his chief concern before he started was to lay a bet of five dollars with anybody in the starboard watch that he didn't fall out of the rigging. But there were no takers, for there was not a man aboard who would believe that this was the first time he had gone up on a yard.

It was not many weeks before Klondyke was the most efficient ordinary seaman aboard the Margaret Carey. And by that time he had become a power among the after gang. As one of the Yankees, who was about as tough as they made them but with just a streak of the right color in him, expressed it, "Klondyke was a white man from way back."

The fact was, Klondyke was a white man all through, the only one aboard the ship. It was not a rarefied or aggressively shining sort of whiteness. His language on occasion could be quite as salt as that of anybody else, even more so, perhaps, as he had a greater range of tongues, both living and dead, from which to choose. He was very partial to his meals, and growled terribly if the grub went short as it often did; he also set no store by dagoes and "sich," for he was very far from believing that all men were equal. They were, no doubt, in the sight of God, but Klondyke maintained that the English were first, Yankees and Dutchmen divided second place, and the rest of sea-going humanity were not on the chart at all. He was always extremely clear about this.

From the first day of Klondyke's coming aboard, Sailor, who was very sharp in some things, became mightily interested in the new hand in the wonderful fur cap with flaps for the nose and ears, who went about the ship as if he owned it; while after a time the new hand returned the compliment by taking a friendly interest in Sailor. But that was not at first. Klondyke, for all his go-as-you-please air, was not the kind of man who entered easily upon personal relations. Moreover, there was something about him which puzzled Henry Harper. He spoke a kind of lingo the boy had never heard before. It was that as much as anything which had made Sailor think he was a Yank. He had not been used to that sort of talk at Blackhampton, nor was it the kind in vogue on the Margaret Carey. If not exactly la-di-da, had it been in the mouth of some people it would have been considered a trifle thick.

Sailor's intimacy with Klondyke, which was to have an important bearing upon his life, began in quite a casual way. One afternoon, with the sea like glass, and not a puff of wind in the sails, they sat together on the deck picking oakum to keep them from idleness, when Klondyke suddenly remarked: "Sailor, don't think me inquisitive, but I'm wondering what brought you to sea."

"Inquisitive" was a word Sailor had not heard before, and he could only guess at its meaning. But he thought Klondyke so little inquisitive that he said at once quite simply and frankly, "Dunno." He then added by way of an afterthought, although Klondyke was a new chum and rated the same as himself, "Mister."

"No, I expect not," said Klondyke, "but I've been wondering a bit lately" – there was something very pleasant in Klondyke's tone – "how you come to be aboard this hell ship. One would have thought you'd have done better ashore."

Sailor was not able to offer an opinion upon that.

"In some kind of a store or an office?"

"Can't read, can't write."

"No?" Klondyke's eyebrows went up for a fraction of an instant, then they came down as if a bit ashamed of themselves for having gone up at all. "But it's quite easy to learn, you know."

Sailor gasped in astonishment. He had always been led to believe that to learn to read and write was a task of superhuman difficulty. Some of his friends at Blackhampton had attended a night school now and again, but none of them had been able to make much of the racket of reading and writing, except one, Nick Price, who had a gift that way and was good for nothing else. Besides, as soon as he really took to the game a change came over him. Finally, he left the town.

"I'd never be able to read an' write," said Sailor.

"Why not?" said Klondyke. "Why not, like anybody else … if you stuck it? Of course, you'd have to stick it, you know. It mightn't come very kind at first."

This idea was so entirely new that Sailor rose with quite a feeling of excitement from the upturned bucket on which he sat.

"Honest, mister," he said, gazing wistfully into the face of Klondyke, "do you fink I could?"

"Sure," said Klondyke. "Sure as God made little apples."

Sailor decided that he would think it over. It was a very important step to take.

XVIII

Klondyke's library consisted of two volumes: the Bible and "Don Quixote." Sailor knew a bit about the former work. The Reverend Rogers had read it aloud on a famous occasion when Henry Harper had had the luck to be invited to a real blowout of tea and buns at the Brookfield Street Mission. That was a priceless memory, and Henry Harper always thought that to hear the Reverend Rogers read the Bible was a treat. Klondyke, who was not at all like the Reverend Rogers in word or deed, said it was "a damned good book," and would sometimes read in it when he was at a bit of a loose end.

It was by means of this volume that Sailor learned his alphabet. Presently he got to spelling words of two and three letters, then he got as far as remembering them, and then came the proud day when he could write his name with a stump of pencil on a stray piece of the Brooklyn Eagle, in which Klondyke had packed his tooth brush, the only one aboard the Margaret Carey.

"What is your name, old friend?" Klondyke asked.

"Enry Arper."

"H-e-n with a Hen, ry – Henry. H-a-r with a Har, p-e-r – Harper."

"There ain't no aitch in Arper," said Sailor.

"Why not?"

Enry Arper was Sailor's own private name, which he had been given at his birth, which he had used all his life. He had always felt that as it was the only thing he owned, it was his to do with as he liked. Therefore he was determined to spell it according to his fancy. He wouldn't admit that there could possibly be an aitch in Arper; and for some little time his faith in Klondyke's competence was a bit shaken, for his mentor was at pains to make out that there could be and was.

Henry Harper stuck to his ground, however.

"It's me own name," he said, "an' I oughter know."

Klondyke was amused. He seemed rather to admire Sailor's attitude. No doubt he felt that no Englishman is worth his salt who doesn't spell his name just as the fancy takes him.

Klondyke's own name was Jack Pridmore, and it was set out with other particulars on the flyleaf of his Bible. In a large and rather crude copperplate was inscribed:

 
Jack Pridmore is my name,
England is my nation,
Good old Eton College
Gave me a lib'ral education.
Stet domus et
Floreat Etona.
 

The arms of Eton College with the motto "Floreat Etona" were inscribed on the opposite page, also in tattoo on the left arm of the owner. In Sailor's opinion, Eton College did flourish undoubtedly in the person of Jack Pridmore. He was a white man all through, and long before Sailor could make out that inscription on the flyleaf of Klondyke's Bible, he was convinced that such was the case.

In Sailor's opinion, he was a good one to follow anywhere. Everything in Klondyke seemed in just the right proportion and there was nothing in excess. He was new to the sea, but he was not in the least green or raw in anything. You would have to stay up all night if you meant to get ahead of him. So much had he knocked about the world that he knew men and cities like the back of his hand, and he had the art of shaking down at once in any company.

All the same, in Sailor's opinion, he had odd ideas. For one thing, he set his face against the habit of carrying a knife in your shirt in case the dagoes got above themselves.

"It's not quite white, you know, old friend," said Klondyke.

"Dagoes ain't white," said Sailor.

"No; and that's why we've got to show 'em how white we are if we are going to keep top dog."

This reasoning was too deep for Sailor.

"Don't see it meself. Them dagoes is bigger'n me. If I could lick 'em, I'd lick 'em till they hollered when they started in to fool around. But they are real yaller; none on 'em will face a bit o' sheffle."

"No," said Klondyke, "and they'll not face a straight left with a punch in it either."

Klondyke then made a modest suggestion that Sailor should acquire this part of a white man's equipment. He was firmly convinced that with the rudiments of reading and writing and a straight left with a punch in it, you could go all over the world.

At first Sailor took by no means as kindly to the punching as he did to the other branches of knowledge. He wanted a bit of persuading to face Klondyke in "a little friendly scrapping practice" in the lee of the chart house when no one was by. Klondyke was as hard as a nail; his left was like a horse's kick; and when he stood in his birthday suit, which he did once a day to receive the bucket of water he got Sailor to dash over him – another of his odd ideas – he looked as fine a picture of make and muscle as you could wish to see. Sailor thought "the little friendly scrapping practice" was a very one-sided arrangement. His nose seemed to bleed very easily, his eyes began to swell so that he could hardly see out of them, and his lips and ears thickened with barely any provocation at all, whereas he never seemed to get within a yard of Klondyke's physiognomy unless that warrior put down his hands and allowed him to hit it.

By this time, however, Klondyke had laid such a hold on Henry Harper that he didn't like to turn it up. He'd never make a Slavin or a Corbett – it simply wasn't in him – but all that was "white" in Sailor mustered at this chap's call. The fact was, he had begun to worship Klondyke, and when with the "sand" of a true hero he was able to get over an intense dislike of being knocked about, he began to feel a sort of pride in the process. If he had to take gruel from anybody, it had better be from him. Besides, Sailor was such a queer fish that there seemed something in his nature which almost craved for a licking from the finest chap he had ever known. His affection for this "whitest" of men seemed to grow with the punishment he took from him.

One night, after an easy watch, as they lay talking and smoking in their bunks in the dark, Klondyke remarked:

"Sailor, there's a lot o' guts in you."

Henry Harper, who was very far off that particular discovery, didn't know what Klondyke was getting at.

"You've taken quite a lot of gruel this week. And you've stood up to it well. Mind, I don't think you'll ever make a bruiser, not if you practice until the cows come home. It simply isn't there, old friend. It's almost like hitting a woman, hitting you. It is not your line of country, and it gets me what you are doing aboard this blue-nose outfit. How do you stick it? It must be hell all the time."

Henry Harper made no reply. He was rather out of his depth just now, but he guessed that most of this was true.

"I don't mind taking chances, but it's all the other way with you. Every time you go aloft, you turn white as chalk, and that shows what grit you've got. But your mother ought never to have let you come to sea, my boy."

"Never had no mother," said Sailor.

"No" – Klondyke felt he ought to have known that. "Well, it would have saved mine a deal of disappointment," he said cheerfully, "if she had never had such a son. I'm her great sorrow. But if you had had a mother it would have been another story. You'd have been a regular mother's boy."

Sailor wasn't sure.