"Look, there"s another shark; what a number we"ve seen within the last day or two, captain. Is there any truth in that idea that a shark following a ship means that there"s going to be a death on board?"
"But this one isn"t following the ship; he"s going very nearly clean in the contrary direction."
"Yes, I know. But do you think there"s anything in the idea?"
"Why, I think that if somebody died every time a shark followed a ship there"d soon be none of us left to go to sea at all. What the joker"s really smelling after is the stuff that"s thrown overboard from the cook"s galley from time to time."
"Really? Well, there goes another weird legend of the sea--weird but romantic."
"It"d be a good thing if a few more of them went overboard," laughed the matter-of-fact captain. "They soon will, too--a good many have already.
In the old "windjammer," days when you had nothing to do half the voyage but sit and whistle for a breeze, these yarns got into Jack"s head and stuck there. Now with steam and quick voyages, and a rattling spell of work in stowing cargo every few days or so, Jack hasn"t got time to bother about that sort of thing."
"Then sailors aren"t superst.i.tious any more?"
"No more than sh.o.r.e folk. I"ve seen landsmen both on board ship and ash.o.r.e who could give points in that line to the scarriest old Jack-tar who ever munched salt horse, and knock him hollow at that."
"Then you"ve no superst.i.tions of your own, captain--you, a sailor?"
"Not one; I don"t believe any such nonsense."
A solitary pa.s.senger, pa.s.sing at the time in his walk up and down, overhearing, smiled and nodded approval.
The _Baleka_ was steering north by north-west, every eleven or eleven and a half knots that her nose managed to shove through the water that creamed back from her straight stem bringing her an hour nearer England.
She was not a mail steamer, or even a regular pa.s.senger boat, being one of a private venture embarked in with the object of cheapening freight between England and the South African ports. But besides a full cargo she carried a limited complement of pa.s.sengers and a quite unlimited ditto of c.o.c.kroaches; otherwise she was an exceedingly comfortable boat, and combined good catering with a considerable reduction on current rates of pa.s.sage money by the ordinary lines, all of which was a consideration with those to whom a few days more or less at sea mattered nothing.
The smoking-room amidships was a snug apartment with roomy chairs and well-cushioned lounges. In one corner three or four of the male pa.s.sengers were hard at work capturing the Transvaal--a form of amus.e.m.e.nt widely prevailing at that time, although the war had not yet been started; rather should we have omitted the transition qualification, for they had already conquered and annexed the obnoxious republic, and that with surprisingly little loss or difficulty. Then the discussion waxed lively and warm, for the justifiability of the proposed annexation had come up; meanwhile others had dropped in.
"I maintain it would be utterly unjustifiable," said one. "It"s all very well to urge that it would be for the good of civilisation and numbers, and all that sort of thing, but we can"t do evil that good may come of it. That"s a hard and fast rule."
"There"s no such thing as a hard and fast rule, or oughtn"t to be,"
retorted with some heat he who had borne the main part of the argument; "but if there is, why, "the greatest good for the greatest number" is a fairly safe one. What do you think sir?" turning to a man who was seated in another corner reading, but who had paid no attention to the discussion at all.
"Think? Oh, I don"t know. I haven"t been in that part long enough to have formed an opinion," was the answer.
"But you don"t agree with our friend there that there should be a hard and fast rule for everything? Surely you are of opinion that every question should be decided on its own merits?"
"Certainly," replied the other politely, though inwardly bored at being dragged into a crude and threadbare discussion upon a subject in which he felt no interest whatever. "That"s a sound principle all the world over, and a safe one."
"There you are," cried the first speaker triumphantly, turning upon his antagonist. "What did I tell you? This gentleman agrees with me entirely, as any sensible man would on such a point as that."
"We can"t do evil that good may come of it," reiterated the said antagonist. "That"s a hard and fast rule."
"Hard and fast rule be blowed! You might as well apply that to the Valpy case," naming a somewhat prominent lawsuit then going forward, and relating to a disputed succession. "If the Valpy in possession weren"t justified in sticking to possession when he knew the real heir was a congenital idiot, and a homicidal one at that--why, there"s no such thing as any law of common sense."
"What were the facts?" asked the man who had been appealed to from outside. "I have not been much in the way of reading the papers of late."
They told him--several of them at once, as the way of a smoking-room gathering is. By judicious winnowing down he managed to elicit that a vast deal of property had been in dispute, that the holder had been an exemplary landlord, and, in short, a sort of Providence to all dependent on him; whereas the man who had successfully established his own claim, and thereby had ousted him, was one of those subjects for whom a few minutes in a lethal chamber would have const.i.tuted the only appropriate and adequate treatment. Indeed, the only matter of debate was as to whether the former holder, knowing that he was not legally ent.i.tled to remain in possession, was justified in retaining the same. Those here present were of opinion that he was.
"I don"t agree with you at all," said the uncompromising man. "We can"t do evil that good may come of it. That"s the divine law, and--"
"Hallo! What"s the excitement?" interrupted somebody, as several persons hurried by the open door, some with binoculars in their hands.
"Oh, we"ve only sighted some ship, I suppose," said the leader on the other side. "What I was going to say is--"
But ever so little to break the sea and sky monotony of a voyage will avail to raise a modic.u.m of excitement; wherefore, what the speaker "was going to say" remained perforce unknown, for the group incontinently melted away in order to see what little there was to be seen.
That little was little enough. A solitary speck away towards the sky-line; to those who had binoculars, and soon to those who had not, taking shape--that shape the hull of a ship. Little enough in all conscience.
But--was it? The submerged hull of a ship and no more, save for two stumps of mast of uneven length sticking out of her. The p.o.o.p and forecastle were above water, and in the wash of the increasing evening swell part of the bulwarks heaved up as the hulk rolled lazily, her rusty red sides, glistening and wet, showing a line of encrusting barnacles. This was what met the eager gaze of the pa.s.sengers of the _Baleka_ in the lurid, smoky glare of the tropical sunset as the steamer swept up to, and slowed down to pa.s.s, the sad relic; and there may have been some among them who noticed that the long, straight path of her foamy wake has undergone an abrupt deviation behind her--for the derelict had been lying right in her course.
Right in her course! An hour later and it would have been dark--very dark--and then!
There was quite a buzz of interest among the pa.s.sengers; the man who had been to sea a great deal advancing, of course, all sorts of wild and impossible theories with regard to the wreck. But though gla.s.ses were strained upon her no trace was visible as to her name or nationality.
"By George! I"m blest if it isn"t the Red Derelict herself!" exclaimed the fourth officer, lowering his binoculars. Instantly he became the centre of an inquiring group, chiefly ladies.
"The Red Derelict? What"s that, Mr Ransome?" came the eager query.
"Haven"t you heard of her?" said the other, who was little more than a merry-faced boy. "Why, she"s a sort of Flying Dutchman. She"s been cruising around in these waters some time now, and they say it isn"t lucky to sight her."
"Luckier than not to sight her--and an hour later we shouldn"t have sighted her--in the dark."
The rejoinder was significant, and it came from the quiet pa.s.senger who had been appealed to for his opinion during the smoke-room discussion.
The fourth officer looked not at all pleased at this encroachment on his own privileges as oracle. But he was destined to look less pleased still.
"Mr Ransome," interrupted the captain"s voice from the bridge overhead, "just send me the second quartermaster here. After that I want you here yourself." And the captain"s tone was crisp, and his face was grim--and the merry-faced boy looked no longer merry, for he knew a wigging was in store.
"Right, sir," he answered, starting off with alacrity.
"Powis, d"you hear that blighted young fool blithering away about Red Derelicts and Flying Dutchmen?" said the captain in an undertone to the chief officer. "As if pa.s.sengers ain"t a skeery enough crowd without filling "em up with all sorts of sick old sea lies into the bargain. He ought to be sent back to school again and well swished. Well, log the derelict."
The bugle rang out its second dinner summons to the strains of "The Roast Beef of Old England," and there was something of a scurry among the pa.s.sengers, who had ignored the first in their eagerness to watch the derelict. A few, however, remained, gazing after the ghastly eloquence of the deserted hulk, now black and indistinct in the dusk, for in the tropical seas darkness comes down with a rush.
"Wonder if there"s anything in Ransome"s yarn about that beauty," said one man, shutting his binoculars. "Hang it! I"m not superst.i.tious, but, all the same, I wish we"d never sighted her."
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX.
AN OMEN.
There was the usual clatter of knives and forks, and c.h.i.n.king of gla.s.ses, and scurrying of stewards in the well-lighted saloon, and during dinner the derelict they had just pa.s.sed took up a large proportion of the conversation. As to this the captain"s table const.i.tuted no exception.
"What sort of ship would she have been, Captain Lawes--English?" The speaker was the lady pa.s.senger we heard making inquiries as to sea superst.i.tions. She was a bright, rather taking woman of about thirty, making the homeward voyage with one child, a sweetly-pretty little girl, who was made a great pet of among the pa.s.sengers--indeed, a great deal more than was good for her.
"Can"t say for certain, but am inclined to think so. She must have been a timber ship or she"d hardly have kept afloat for so long."
"How long do you think she"s been like that?"