the strong room of the ocean.
dr. fabos fails to find joan fordibras.
the boat’s crew laid to their oars with a hearty will, directly i gave them the word; and we shot over the still waters almost with the speed of a steamer’s launch. it was a new experience for me to find myself afloat upon the atlantic in a small boat, and i confess, even in such fair weather, not wholly a pleasant one. the long rollers, alternately lifting us to prodigious heights and plunging us as to a very abyss of the ocean, shut in turn both ships from my view and permitted me but a rare glimpse of them as we rose upon the crest of some rolling wave which seemed about to engulf us utterly. i realised, as all seamen realise from time to time, the meaning of man’s victory over the sea and the splendour of it. and excitement carried me without distress where i would have feared to go upon a common day.
i was about to see my little joan again. unless this man had lied to me, so much must be beyond question. i should find her on the great ship and take her, at last and finally, from this hive of ruffians into which the accidents of life had cast her from her very childhood. much as she had suffered, it remained my hope that her own courage and the circumstances of her presence upon the ship had saved her from that nameless evil which might otherwise have been her fate. imroth had kept the child from harm—that i firmly believed; and imroth having fled, the terror of his name might still be powerful to save her. herein lay the supreme consolation as our voyage drew to its end, and every rolling crest showed us more clearly the immense hull, standing up from the water like a very castle impregnable. i was the bearer of a message to joan fordibras, and she should be the first there to whom the story of succour must be told. there could be no purpose dearer to me or one i embarked upon so gladly.
the sun had been upon the point of setting when i quitted the yacht, and a chill of evening fell with an aftermath of drifting mist as the men drove the long-boat up to the ship. my first impression, for i had never before viewed a big steamer from a small boat on the open sea, was one of a vast towering immensity rising sheer above me as the wall of a fortress or the black precipice of a mountain. the ladder itself, by which i must gain the deck, swung fragile as a thread from a boom amidships—no steam came from the ship’s valves, although the bilge was flowing freely. i could detect no sound of movement or human activity; nothing but the appearance of three or four pale anxious faces at the gangway above allowed me to say that the ship had a crew at all. these men, however, waited for my coming with an expectancy which was almost pathetic, and scarcely had i climbed the ladder than they surrounded me immediately with such piteous entreaty to come to their comrades’ aid that my own imperious question sounded abrupt almost to the point of harshness.
“you have a lady upon this ship—where is she?”
“she has gone, sir.”
“gone! good god, how can she be gone?”
“we knew what you would ask, and sent down to her cabin a quarter of an hour ago, sir. she was not there. mr. colin ross, him that commands for mr. imroth, he says he knows nothing of it. it’s true as heaven, sir—the lady’s come to no harm by us, nor would have done if she had been aboard here twenty years. there wasn’t a man that wouldn’t have given his life for her. we don’t know where she is, sir, and that’s gospel truth.”
imagine the scene. i stood upon the open deck of the strangest steamer i have yet set foot upon—a steamer so splendidly fitted and furnished, as one glance told me, that no atlantic liner, whatever company floated her, could have claimed a greater elegance. the bridge above me had the neatness, the shining brass, the white ladders of a man-of-warsman. the guns were polished to the last possibility. every cabin into which i looked appeared to boast the luxury and equipment of a state saloon on a cunard or a white star boat. i perceived an immense dining hall aft, and a companion-way not unsuited to a ten thousand ton steamer. there were boats abundantly, safety rafts—the usual equipment of an ocean-going vessel, and yet, in the strongest contrast, something which differentiated this ship from any other i had ever visited, and placed her at once in a category apart. this was nothing more nor less than a screen of solid steel bars, ten feet high, perhaps, and defended by forbidding spikes, sharp as swords and impossible to fend, a screen cutting the vessel into two clear divisions, and obviously the jew’s protection against all others who sailed with him. i judged at once that the men lived forward of this screen; imroth and his chosen company aft. a wicket gate, just large enough to admit the body of a man, permitted communication between the divisions; but the steelwork itself appeared to be carried cunningly over the bulwarks in a manner that must have rendered absolutely the aft cabins secure not only against the seamen collectively, but against any spy among them who had the fancy to watch the jew in his less suspicious moments.
this wicket-gate, be it said, stood open when i climbed to the main deck, and the men now passed to and fro at their will. the most horrible aspect of the picture did not immediately present itself to my notice. i was some minutes aboard before my eyes discerned the huddled figures of men, some propped in bent attitudes against the bulwarks, some already dead, a few crying horribly in the agony of mutilation. as the scene unfolded itself, the woe of it became more terrible to witness. there were sailors of many nationalities here, chiefly, i perceived, from south european and mediterranean ports, turks in their native dress, sturdy greeks, tunisians, seamen from algiers and the adriatic. of those who crowded about me unwounded, two were americans, one a nigger, a third a little frenchman, who gabbled to the point of delirium. the appeal, however, was common to all.
“help our friends, doctor—save them for god’s sake. we have no doctor on board. herr klein sailed with mr. imroth. we can do nothing for ourselves.”
the woe of it appalled me. i knew neither what to answer them nor how best to help them. many a day had passed since i practised my own profession. and to be called upon as a surgeon upon a battlefield!
“have you stores?” i asked. “is there a surgery on board?”
they shouted an affirmative all together. half-a-dozen among them were ready to lead me below. hesitating an instant to give my command to okyada, i went with them as they desired.
“miss joan is on the ship,” i said to the faithful fellow. “find her and take her to the yacht.”
okyada looked up at me with one swift, almost wistful glance, and disappeared immediately from my sight. the burly american, who posed as my guide, pushing his comrades aside, led me through the wicket gate, and we descended the great companion-way. it would be impossible adequately to describe the luxury and the splendour of this part of the ship even as one brief scrutiny revealed it. the very lamps appeared to be of solid silver. the panelling was of the rarest woods, teak and old spanish mahogany and satin wood. i caught a glimpse of the great dining saloon, and beheld walls covered by pictures of undoubted mark and quality—chiefly of the french and spanish schools. we passed by a boudoir furnished with such elegance that paris alone could have commanded its ensemble. there was a card room not unlike that of a great london club, with little tables and electric lamps upon them, and even discarded packs scattered in angry disorder upon the blue persian carpet which covered a parquet floor. crossing this room and leaving it by a door toward the centre of the ship, i found myself immediately in a broad corridor lighted from above, and the walls of this appeared to be of steel. had i been in doubt as to the meaning of it, the american’s candour would have settled the matter without question.
“old five’s strong box,” said he. “that’s where he keeps what isn’t good to eat. i guess the best of the stuff’s landed by this time. it went off in colin ross’s ship. you might buy yourself a gold brick out of what’s left and not be much poorer. we share and share in that now. there used to be a guard down here night and day when old isaac was aboard. i guess you scared him pretty badly. he ran for the brazils the day after we sighted you?——”
i asked him but one question in turn.
“was general fordibras on board with the man you speak of?”
“not this trip. i heard tell he’d gone to europe. he’s too easy for this job. three-fingers never could look a sheffield knife in the face. i guess his daughter’s got all the courage.”
we had passed another door of steel as he spoke and descended a short flight of stairs to a second corridor, about which were cabins of a commoner order. here the surgery of the ship had been located—a well fitted, thoroughly modern apartment, recently tenanted, it seemed, by a doctor who knew what the hospitals of europe were doing. a quick search discovered the antiseptics, the wool, the liniment and the lancets, without which so little could be done for the wounded men above. there was nothing missing for the practice of a modern art.
it would be a work of supererogation to tell you of the long hours which followed immediately upon my assumption of the r?le of ship’s doctor. i passed through them as one passes through a dreamland of restless thoughts. there were no fewer than thirty-one wounded men upon the steamer; and, of these, seven belonged to the fo’castle party, twenty-four to the saloons. the latter chained my interests in spite of their condition, for there were englishmen among them, and faces that the stories of recent crimes had made familiar to me. one lad, slashed heavily across the forehead by a clasp knife, had been mentioned, i remembered, in connection with the famous forgeries upon the bank of england some five years ago. i recognised the italian jewel thief, detucchi, the german forger, urich, the young belgian, monterry, supposed to be serving a sentence of penal servitude for life for his attack upon king leopold. happily, few of these men had been wounded by rifle bullets. those whom the guns had killed fell upon the instant and their bodies were already in the sea. my patients were the victims of cuts, fearful gashes in some cases, and difficult fractures in others. two died while i tried to help them. it was a woeful task, and i trust that i may never be called to its fellow.
the honest men, happily, for so i called the sailors of the ship, had suffered considerably less. i found them profoundly grateful for such services as i could render them; nor did the american hesitate to tell me frankly the story of the mutiny.
“we were making for rio, but mr. ross stood out,” he said. “a relief’s expected, and i guess there are some law-sick folk on board her. he treated us like dirt, and began to talk of rafting. do you know what rafting is, doctor—no, well, it’s putting living men overboard on a raft as big as a deal board and wishing ’em good luck while they go. don’t try it while you can sail saloon. colin ross fell sick of a fever and is down below raving now. we got the arms by tickling the mate’s whiskers and promising him ross’s berth. that was the first and the last of it. we shot ’em down like sheep, and now we’re going ashore to spend our money—those that live, though they’re like to be few enough.”
here was a truth beyond all question. i stood on the deck of a veritable plague ship. a wail of death rose unceasingly. night had come down, and a thick white mist enveloped the ocean all about us. the yacht was nowhere to be seen. of all the hours of that great endeavour, this, to me, was the most terrible, alike in its menace and its suggestion.
for i said that the yacht might lose me in the fog and leave me, the prisoner of these desperate men, and their hostage against the justice which awaited them.