CHAPTER III We Put to Sea

CHAPTER III We Put to Sea

AT dawn, when an unearthly opalescent glow lay upon the Kali Mas, we steamed out of Surabaja. Captain Cook was on the bridge, and I kept pacing the deck, nervously watching the hatchway which kept Dan Rassel a prisoner. I expected to hear yells and oaths storm up from below; shouts which would have to be explained to a bewildered crew.

To my astonishment, however, Dan Rassel made no sound. He seemed to accept the situation fatalistically. I didn't realize then, as I learned later, that a year of unremitting bitterness had made this man indifferent to almost anything which might happen to him. Nothing concerned Dan Rassel any more— nothing save the fact that he would never again be entrusted with a ship. But that was enough to ruin him.

We were five hours out of Surabaja, pitching over the long swells of blue Java seas, when Captain Cook summoned me to his quarters. In his eyes was a curious glint, half humorous, half malicious, as he snapped:

I myself opened the hatch. "Rassel!" I called into the dark depths. "Come up here."

Several moments passed without response. It occurred to me that he might have fallen asleep or that he might be hurt. I was on the point of going down to investigate when his long figure slowly mounted the companionway. He looked up at me contemptuously, his cap set on the back of his head.

Hoodoo of the Sea

7 to have the freedom of the ship."

Rassel started forward. I tried to hold him back. He shoved me out of his way, continuing along the deck as if I didn't exist.

Well, Captain Cook had ordered the freedom of the ship for this man. So I did nothing, and he boldly pushed open the door of the captain's cabin and halted on the threshold.

Looking over his shoulder, I saw Cook bending over a chart. At the sight of Rassel he straightened slowly, without excitement, drew the cigar from his lips. He studied the red- haired man appraisingly.

Rassel spoke first. "As scurvy and yellow-spined a trick as I've ever heard of," he rapped out harshly.

Captain Cook shook his head. "No," he said quietly, "I don't think I want to fight it out. Not here, anyhow. It wouldn't be fair."

A hint of a sneer twisted Rassel's lips. "I've heard of you before, Captain Cook. All sorts of stories. Most of them told how you were quick tempered, but a pretty square fighter. I had an idea you could take a beating without acting like a kid."

Captain Cook's face hardened. "You're to have the freedom of the ship as you were informed." The captain turned back to his charts. "I'll thank you, Mr. Rassel," he snapped, "to leave me alone. I've got business to tend to."

Rassel turned away and went to lean over the rail, his eyes fixed speculatively on the horizon. Watching him, I became more than ever convinced that this man had lost his interest in life. Ashore or shanghaied—it made no appreciable difference.

WITHIN half an hour, of course, the men learned that Hoodoo Rassel was aboard. The news traveled among them swiftly, frighteningly. They stopped work to stare at the stranger at the rail. Into their eyes came quick unease and alarm. They whispered to one another.

For Dan Rassel had become a symbol of death in those waters. Most men, tinged with native superstition, would have sworn that to go to sea with Captain Rassel on board meant certain calamity.

By that time, however, we were a good many miles from Java, and there was nothing the crew could do about him. I had an uncomfortable suspicion, nevertheless, that at the first port we made a delegation would present itself to Captain Cook demanding that Dan Rassel be put ashore.

But that was the captain's concern, not mine. As for myself, I had my hands full. Mr. Bleak, the second mate, was down with some

Thrilling Adventures

8 tropical disease—a fever that caught him intermittently and stretched him in his berth for days at a time. It held him this afternoon and some of the hands began to mutter that it was the first indication of trouble aboard ship.

Yet nothing much occurred that day; nor the next.

Three days later, however, off the coast of Sumatra, we ran into ugly weather. It was the monsoon season, and we ran into a beauty that hurled thirty-foot waves at the prow of the Eastern Gull. But worse, we had wandered close—much too close, I thought— to the rocky coast. Unless we could hold our headway against those tremendous, smashing seas, we could easily ride into trouble.

Captain Cook never left the bridge. With the Eastern Gull rolling and straining and pitching crazily, so that a man had to cling to something for support at every step, he didn't dare to leave his post.

Darkness found us closer than ever to the reef strewn shoreline. I felt worried— desperately worried. So did everybody else. I had never known Captain Cook to take a ship so close to shore in a storm. The crew were crying openly that if we ran into disaster it would be because Jinx Rassel was on board.

Once I saw Rassel picking his way along the deck, his face grim and soaked and savage. His eyes blazed. When he spied me, he yelled into the teeth of the wind:

He laughed again in that same rasping way. "So Captain Cook thought he'd bring me aboard to have his revenge, did he? That's funny—damn funny! Mark my words, Warden. He'll crash on the reefs before morning. It's happened to me twice in storms like this. It's my hoodoo!"

I MOVED among the men, trying to make them forget the presence of Dan Rassel. But they wouldn't. Their eyes were enraged. Though it sounded mutinous, they were boldly expressing their opinions of a captain who would take a jinx on board.

One man pointed through the blackness and shouted: "Those reefs ain't a mile away! And we ain't making any headway against these seas!"

He was right. The engines were giving all the power they had, yet the Eastern Gull was waging a feeble, losing battle against those mountainous seas.

Until midnight we continued our struggle. Once, in a flare of greenish lightning, it seemed to me that I could see the rocks of Sumatra hardly half a mile away. The sight jolted me.

I was drenched when I stumbled into his quarters. So was he—a huge figure whose curly grey hair was pasted down around his ears. He glared at me as he shut the door.

Captain Cook nodded. He was haggard

Hoodoo of the Sea

9 with weariness. His eyes were inflamed, red rimmed. Yet there was a certain air of smug satisfaction beneath his exhaustion. While I watched in bewilderment, he turned to his bunk, picked up a long strip of cloth.

I stared at him in amazement. I couldn't stir—until he thrust the cloth into my hands.

He thrust out his arm. His manner was authoritative, insistent. Though I had some faint urge to rebel, there was a savage brilliance in his eyes that compelled me to obey. Quickly, awkwardly, I bound up his right arm in a sling. When I finished he nodded approvingly and peered deep into my eyes.

He actually shoved me to his bed. I fell upon it, propped myself up on my elbows and gaped at him. Was the man mad? His own good arm in a sling, and I pretending to be half conscious—what was it all about?

He pulled the door open, winced against the blast of wind and rain that struck him. Cupping his left hand around his lips, he roared into the darkness:

Sheer curiosity kept me on that bed. Wide-eyed, I watched while the captain yelled the name again. He had to shout for a full minute before Rassel at last lurched into the cabin. He was soaked, breathing heavily. He swung his eyes from Captain Cook to me, and that sneering smile returned to his lips.

Captain Cook, leaning heavily against a chair, croaked in a low, unrecognizable voice: "To hell with that! There's no time for superstition now."

Captain Cook breathed heavily. Something like importunity flared in his eyes. "Look, Rassel," he said in that deep, hoarse voice, "we're in a bad way."

Thrilling Adventures

10

lying there for the past fifteen minutes, groaning."

I was flat on my back, my eyes half closed. What it was the captain had in mind I couldn't yet judge. Yet I felt somehow persuaded to play his game.