Jack London - Michael, Brother of Jerry

And Simon Nishikanta, in his grouch, disdaining to reply, would continue to pepper the last whale into flight beyond the circle of the sea their vision commanded.

“I remember the whaleship Essex ,” the Ancient Mariner told Dag Daughtry. “It was a cow with a calf that did for her. Her barrels were two-thirds full, too. She went down in less than an hour. One of the boats never was heard of.”

“And didn’t another one of her boats get to Hawaii , sir?” Daughtry queried with all due humility of respect. “Leastwise, thirty years ago, when I was in Honolulu , I met a man, an old geezer, who claimed he’d been a harpooner on a whaleship sunk by a whale off the coast of South America . That was the first and last I heard of it, until right now you speaking of it, sir. It must a-been the same ship, sir, don’t you think?”

“Unless two different ships were whale-sunk off the west coast,” the Ancient Mariner replied. “And of the one ship, the Essex , there is no discussion. It is historical. The chance is likely, steward, that the man you mentioned was from the Essex .”

Captain Doane worked hard, pursuing the sun in its daily course through the sky, by the equation of time correcting its aberrations due to the earth’s swinging around the great circle of its orbit, and charting Sumner lines innumerable, working assumed latitudes for position until his head grew dizzy.

Simon Nishikanta sneered openly at what he considered the captain’s inefficient navigation, and continued to paint water-colours when he was serene, and to shoot at whales, sea-birds, and all things hurtable when he was downhearted and sea-sore with disappointment at not sighting the Lion’s Head peak of the Ancient Mariner’s treasure island.

“I’ll show I ain’t a pincher,” Nishikanta announced one day, after having broiled at the mast-head for five hours of sea-searching. “Captain Doane, how much could we have bought extra chronometers for in San Francisco —good second-hand ones, I mean?”

“Say a hundred dollars,” the captain answered.

“Very well. And this ain’t a piker’s proposition. The cost of such a chronometer would have been divided between the three of us. I stand for its total cost. You just tell the sailors that I, Simon Nishikanta, will pay one hundred dollars gold money for the first one that sights land on Mr. Greenleaf’s latitude and longitude.”

But the sailors who swarmed the mast-heads were doomed to disappointment, in that for only two days did they have opportunity to stare the ocean surface for the reward. Nor was this due entirely to Dag Daughtry, despite the fact that his own intention and act would have been sufficient to spoil their chance for longer staring.

Down in the lazarette, under the main-cabin floor, it chanced that he took toll of the cases of beer which had been shipped for his especial benefit. He counted the cases, doubted the verdict of his senses, lighted more matches, counted again, then vainly searched the entire lazarette in the hope of finding more cases of beer stored elsewhere.

He sat down under the trap door of the main-cabin floor and thought for a solid hour. It was the Jew again, he concluded—the Jew who had been willing to equip the Mary Turner with two chronometers, but not with three; the Jew who had ratified the agreement of a sufficient supply to permit Daughtry his daily six quarts. Once again the steward counted the cases to make sure. There were three. And since each case contained two dozen quarts, and since his whack each day was half a dozen quarts, it was patent that, the supply that stared him in the face would last him only twelve days. And twelve days were none too long to sail from this unidentifiable naked sea-stretch to the nearest possible port where beer could be purchased.

The steward, once his mind was made up, wasted no time. The clock marked a quarter before twelve when he climbed up out of the lazarette, replaced the trapdoor, and hurried to set the table. He served the company through the noon meal, although it was all he could do to refrain from capsizing the big tureen of split-pea soup over the head of Simon Nishikanta. What did effectually withstrain him was the knowledge of the act which in the lazarette he had already determined to perform that afternoon down in the main hold where the water-casks were stored.

At three o’clock, while the Ancient Mariner supposedly drowned in his room, and while Captain Doane, Grimshaw, and half the watch on deck clustered at the mast-heads to try to raise the Lion’s Head from out the sapphire sea, Dag Daughtry dropped down the ladder of the open hatchway into the main hold. Here, in long tiers, with alleyways between, the water-casks were chocked safely on their sides.

From inside his shirt the steward drew a brace, and to it fitted a half-inch bit from his hip-pocket. On his knees, he bored through the head of the first cask until the water rushed out upon the deck and flowed down into the bilge. He worked quickly, boring cask after cask down the alleyway that led to deeper twilight. When he had reached the end of the first row of casks he paused a moment to listen to the gurglings of the many half-inch streams running to waste. His quick ears caught a similar gurgling from the right in the direction of the next alleyway. Listening closely, he could have sworn he heard the sounds of a bit biting into hard wood.

A minute later, his own brace and bit carefully secreted, his hand was descending on the shoulder of a man he could not recognize in the gloom, but who, on his knees and wheezing, was steadily boring into the head of a cask. The culprit made no effort to escape, and when Daughtry struck a match he gazed down into the upturned face of the Ancient Mariner.

“My word!” the steward muttered his amazement softly. “What in hell are you running water out for?”

He could feel the old man’s form trembling with violent nervousness, and his own heart smote him for gentleness.

“It’s all right,” he whispered. “Don’t mind me. How many have you bored?”

“All in this tier,” came the whispered answer. “You will not inform on me to the . . . the others?”

“Inform?” Daughtry laughed softly. “I don’t mind telling you that we’re playing the same game, though I don’t know why you should play it. I’ve just finished boring all of the starboard row. Now I tell you, sir, you skin out right now, quietly, while the goin’ is good. Everybody’s aloft, and you won’t be noticed. I’ll go ahead and finish this job . . . all but enough water to last us say a dozen days.”

“I should like to talk with you . . . to explain matters,” the Ancient Mariner whispered.

“Sure, sir, an’ I don’t mind sayin’, sir, that I’m just plain mad curious to hear. I’ll join you down in the cabin, say in ten minutes, and we can have a real gam. But anyway, whatever your game is, I’m with you. Because it happens to be my game to get quick into port, and because, sir, I have a great liking and respect for you. Now shoot along. I’ll be with you inside ten minutes.”

“I like you, steward, very much,” the old man quavered.

“And I like you, sir—and a damn sight more than them money-sharks aft. But we’ll just postpone this. You beat it out of here, while I finish scuppering the rest of the water.”

A quarter of an hour later, with the three money-sharks still at the mast-heads, Charles Stough Greenleaf was seated in the cabin and sipping a highball, and Dag Daughtry was standing across the table from him, drinking directly from a quart bottle of beer.

“Maybe you haven’t guessed it,” the Ancient Mariner said; “but this is my fourth voyage after this treasure.”