at kingston, captain denbigh goes ashore with first mate jack paul, and pays over in bank of england paper those one thousand pounds which represent that one-sixth interest in the john o’gaunt. while the pair are upon this bit of maritime business, the three hundred mournful blacks are landed under the supervision of the second mate. among the virtues which a cargo of slaves possesses over a shipment of cotton or sugar or rum, is the virtue of legs. this merit is made so much of by the energetic second officer of the john o’gaunt, that, within half a day, the last of the three hundred blacks is landed on the kingston quay. received and receipted for by a bilious spaniard with an umbrella hat, who is their consignee, the blacks are marched away to the stockade which will confine them while awaiting distribution among the plantations. captain denbigh puts to sea with the john o’gaunt in ballast the same evening. a brisk seaman, and brisker man of business, is captain denbigh, and no one to spend money and time ashore, when he may be making the one and saving the other afloat.
first mate jack paul, his fortune of one thousand pounds safe in the strong-boxes of the kingston bank, sallies forth to look for a ship. he decides to go passenger, for the sake of seeing what it is like, and his first thought is to visit his brother william by the rappahannock. this fraternal venture he forbears, when he discovers kingston to be in the clutch of that saffron terror the yellow fever. little is being locally said of the epidemic, for the town is fearful of frightening away its commerce. the kingston heart, like most human hearts, thinks more of its own gold than of the lives of other men. wherefore kingston is sedulous to hide the plague in its midst, lest word go abroad on blue water and drive away the ships.
first mate jack paul becomes aware of kingston for the death-trap it is before he is ashore two days. it is the suspicious multitude of funerals thronging the sun-baked streets, that gives him word. and yet the grewsome situation owns no peculiar threat for him, since he has sailed these blistering latitudes so often and so much that he may call himself immune. for him, the disastrous side is that, despite the kingston efforts at concealment, a plague-whisper drifted out to sea, and as a cautious consequence the kingston shipping has dwindled to be nothing. this scarcity of ships vastly interferes with that chance of a passage home.
“the first craft, outward bound for england, shall do,” thinks first mate jack paul. “as to william, i’ll defer my visit until i may go ashore to him without bringing the yellow jack upon half virginia.”
while waiting for that home-bound ship, first mate jack paul goes upon a pilgrimage of respect to the tomb of admiral benbow. that sea-wolf lies buried in the parish chapel-yard in king street.
as first mate jack paul leaves the little burying-ground, he runs foul of a polite adventure which, in its final expression, will have effect upon his destiny. his aid is enlisted in favor of a lady in trouble.
the troubled lady, fat, florid and forty, is being conveyed along king street in her ketureen, a sort of sedan chair on two wheels, drawn by a half-broken english horse. the horse, excited by a funeral procession of dancing, singing, shouting blacks, capsizes the ketureen, and the fat, florid one is decanted upon the curb at the feet of first mate jack paul. alive to what is christian in the way of duty, he raises the florid, fat decanted one, and congratulates her upon having suffered no harm.
the ketureen is restored to an even keel. the fat, florid one boards it, though not before she invites first mate jack paul to dinner. being idle, lonesome, and hungry for english dishes, he accepts, and accompanies the fat, florid one in the dual guise of guest and bodyguard.
sir holman hardy, husband to the fat, florid one, is as fatly florid as his spouse. incidentally he is in command of what british soldiers are stationed at kingston. the fat, florid one presents first mate jack paul to her hector, tells the tale of the rescue, and thereupon the three go in to dinner. later, first mate jack paul and his host smoke in the deep veranda, where, during the cool of the evening, sir holman drinks sangaree, and first mate jack paul drinks madeira. also sir holman inveighs against the horse guards for consigning him to such a pit of tophet as is kingston.
between sangaree and maledictions levelled at the horse guards, sir holman gives first mate jack paul word of a brig, the king george’s packet, out of china for kingston with tea, which he looks for every day. discharging its tea, the king george’s packet will load with rum for whitehaven; and sir holman declares that first mate jack paul shall sail therein, a passenger-guest, for home. sir holman is able to promise this, since the fat, florid rescued one is the child of shipowner donald of donald, currie & beck, owners of the king george’s packet.
“which makes me,” expounds sir holman, his nose in the sangaree, “a kind of son-in-law to the brig itself.”
he grumblingly intimates—he is far gone in sangaree at the time—that a fleet of just such sea-trinkets as the king george’s packet, so far as he has experimented with the marital condition, constitutes the one redeeming feature of wedlock.
“and so,” concludes the excellent sir holman, “you’re to go home with the rum, guest of the ship itself; and the thing i could weep over is that i cannot send my kit aboard and sail with you.”
two days go by, and the king george’s packet is sighted off port royal; twenty-four hours later its master, captain macadam—-a solway man—is drinking sir holman’s sangaree. making good his word, sir holman sends for first mate jack paul, and that business of going passenger to whitehaven is adjusted.
“true!” observes captain macadam, when he understands—“true, the george isn’t fitted up for passengers. but”—turning to first mate jack paul—“you’ll no mind; bein’ a seaman yours eh?”
“more than that, captain,” breaks in sir holman, “since the port is reeling full of yellow jack, some of your people might take it to sea with them. should aught go wrong, now, why here is your passenger, a finished sailorman, to give you a lift.”
captain macadam’s face has been tanned like leather. none the less, as he hears the above the mahogany hue thereof lapses into a pasty, piecrust color. plainly that word yellow jack fills his soul with fear. he mentions the wearisome fact to first mate jack paul, as he and that young gentleman, after their cigars and sangaree with sir holman, are making a midnight wake for the change house whereat they have bespoken beds.
“it’s no kindly,” complains captain macadam, “for sir holman to let me run my brig blindfold into sic a snare. but then he has a fourth share in the tea, and another in the rum; and so, for his profit like, he lets me tak’ my chances. he’d stude better wi’ god on high i’m thinkin’, if he’d let his profit gone by, and just had a pilot boat standin’ off and on at port royal, to gi’ me the wink to go wide. i could ha’ taken the tea to new york weel enou’. but bein’ i’m here,” concludes the disturbed captain, appealing to first mate jack paul, “what would ye advise?”
“to get your tea ashore and your rum aboard as fast as you may.”
“ay! that’ll about be the weesdom of it!”
captain macadam can talk of nothing but yellow jack all the way to the change house.
“it’s the first time i was ever in these watters,” he explains apologetically, “and now i can smell fever in the air! ay! the hond o’ death is on these islands! be ye no afeard, mon?”
first mate jack paul says that he is not. also he is a trifle irritated at the alarm of the timorous captain macadam.
“that’ll just be your youth now!” observes the timorous one. “ye’re no old enou’ to grasp the responsibeelities.”
at four in the morning captain macadam comes into first mate jack paul’s room at the change house. he is clad in his linen sleeping suit, and his teeth are chattering a little.
“it’s the bein’ ashore makes my teeth drum,” he vouchsafes. “but what i wushed to ask ye, lad, is d’ye believe in fortunes? no? weel, then, neither do i; only i remembered like that lang syne a wierd warlock sort o’ body tells me in the port o’ leith, that i’m to meet my death in the west injies. it’s the first time, as i was tellin’ ye, that ever i comes pokin’ my snout amang these islands; and losh! i believe that warlock chiel was right. i’ve come for my death sure.”
captain macadam promises his crew’ double grog and double wages, and works night and day lightering his tea ashore, and getting his rum casks into the king george’s packet. then he calls a pilot, and, with a four-knot breeze behind him, worms his way along the narrow, corkscrew channel, until he finds himself in open water.
then the pilot goes over the side, and captain macadam takes the brig. he casts an anxious eye astern at port royal, four miles away.
“i’ll no feel safe,” says he, “while yon satan’s nest is under my quarter. and afterward i’ll no feel safe neither. how many days, mon, is a victeem to stand by and look for symptoms?”
first mate jack paul, to whom the query is put, gives it as his opinion that, if they have yellow fever aboard, it will make its appearance within the week.
“weel that’s a mercy ony way!” says captain macadam with a sigh.
there are, besides first mate jack paul, and the captain with his two officers, twelve seamen and the cook—seventeen souls in all—aboard the king george’s packet as, north by east, it crawls away from port royal. for four days the winds hold light but fair. then come head winds, and the brig finds itself making long tacks to and fro in the windward passage, somewhere between cape mazie and the mole st. nicholas.
“d’ye see, mon!” cries captain macadam, whose fears have increased, not diminished, since he last saw the jamaica lights. “the vera weather seeks to keep us in this trap! i’ll no be feelin’ ower weel neither, let me tell ye!”
first mate jack paul informs the alarmed captain that to fear the fever is to invite it.
“i’m no afeard, mon,” returns captain macadam, with a groan, “i’m just impressed.”
the timidities of the captain creep among the mates and crew; forward and aft the feeling is one of terror. the king george’s packet becomes a vessel of gloom. there are no songs, no whistling for a wind. even the cook’s fiddle is silent, and the galley grows as melancholy as the forecastle.
it is eight bells in the afternoon of the fourth day, when the man at the wheel calls to captain macadam. he tosses his thumb astern.
“look there!” says he.
captain macadam peers over the rail, and counts eleven huge sharks. the monsters are following the brig. also, they seem in an ugly mood, since ever and anon they dash at one another ferociously.
“it’ll be a sign!” whispers captain macadam. then he counts them. “there’ll be ‘leven o’ them,” says he; “and that means we’re ‘leven to die!” after this he dives below, and takes to the bottle.
bleared of eye, shaken of hand, captain macadam on the fifth morning finds first mate jack paul on the after deck. the eleven sharks are still sculling sullenly along in the slow wake of the wind-bound brig.
“be they there yet?” asks captain macadam, looking over the stern with a ghastly grin. then answering his own query: “ay! they’ll be there—the ‘leven of ‘em!”
first mate jack paul, observing their daunting effect on the over-harrowed nerves of captain macadam, is for having up his pistols to take a shot at the sharks; but he is stayed by the other.
“they’ll be sent,” says captain macadam; “it’ll no do to slay ‘em, mon! but losh! ain’t a sherk a fearfu’ feesli?” then, seeing his hand shake on the brig’s rail: “it’s the rum. and that’s no gude omen, me takin’ to the rum; for i’m not preeceesely what you’d ca’ a drinkin’ body.”
two hours later captain macadam issues from his cabin and seeks first mate jack paul, where the latter is sitting in the shade of the main sail.
“mon, look at me!” he cries. “d’ye no see? i tell ye, death has found me oot on the deep watters!”
the single glance assures first mate jack paul that captain macadam is right. his eyes are congested and ferrety; his face is flushed. even while first mate jack paul looks, he sees the skin turn yellow as a lemon. he thumbs the sick man’s wrist; the pulse is thumping like a trip-hammer. also, the dry, fevered skin shows an abnormal temperature.
“your tongue!” says first mate jack paul; for he has a working knowledge of yellow jack.
it is but piling evidence upon evidence; the tongue is the color of liver. three hours later, the doomed man is delirious. then the fever gives way to a chill; presently he goes raving his way into eternity, and the king george’s packet loses its captain.
first mate jack paul sews the dead skipper in a hammock with his own fingers; since, mates, crew and cook, not another will bear a hand. when the hammock sewing is over, the cook aids in bringing the corpse on deck. as the body slips from the grating into the sea, a thirty-two pound shot at the heels, the cook laughs overboard at the sharks, still hanging, like hounds upon a scent, to the brig’s wake.
“ye’ll have to dive for the skipper, lads!” sings out the cook.
offended by this ribaldry, first mate jack paul is on the brink of striking the cook down with a belaying pin. for his own nerves are a-jangle, and that misplaced merriment rasps. it is the look in the man’s face which stays his hand.
“ye’ll be right!” cries the cook, as though replying to something in the eye of first mate jack paul. “don’t i know it? it is i who’ll follow the skipper! i’ll just go sew my own hammock, and have it ready, shot and all.”
as the cook starts for the galley, a maniac yell is heard from the forecastle. at that, he pauses, sloping his ear to listen.
“i’ll have company,” says he.
first the cook; then the mates; then seven of the crew. one after the other, they follow a thirty-two pound shot over the side; for after the captain’s death the sailors lose their horror of the plague-killed ones, and sew them up and slip them into the sea as readily as though they are bags of bran. the worst is that a fashion of dull panic takes them, and they refuse their duty. there is no one to command, they say; and, since there can be no commands, there can be no duty. with that they hang moodily about the capstan, or sulk in their bunks below.
first mate jack paul takes the wheel, rather than leave the king george’s packet to con itself across the ocean. as he is standing at the wheel trying to make a plan to save the brig and himself, he observes a sailor blundering aft. the man dives below, and the next moment, through the open skylights, first mate jack paul hears him rummaging the captain’s cabin. in a trice, he lashes the wheel, and slips below on the heels of the sailor. as he surmises, the man is at the rum. without word spoken, he knocks the would-be rum guzzler over, and then kicks him up the companion way to the deck.
pausing only to stick a couple of pistols in his belt, first mate jack paul follows that kicked seaman with a taste for rum. he walks first to the wheel. the wind is steady and light; for the moment the brig will mind itself. through some impulse he glances over the stern; the sharks are gone. this gives him a thought; he will use the going of the sharks to coax the men.
the five are grouped about the capstan, the one who was struck is bleeding like tragedy. first mate jack paul makes them a little speech.
“there are no more to die,” says he. “the called-for eleven are dead, and the sharks no longer follow us. that shows the ship free of menace; we’re all to see england again. and now, mates”—there is that in the tone which makes the five look up—“i’ve a bit of news. from now, until its anchors are down in whitehaven basin, i shall command this ship.”
“you?” speaks up a big sailor. “you’re no but a boy!”
“i’m man enough to sail the brig to england, and make you work like a dog, you swab!” the look in the eye of first mate jack paul, makes the capstan quintette uneasy. he goes on: “come, my hearties, which shall it be? sudden death? or you to do your duty by brig and owners? for, as sure as ever i saw the solway, the first who doesn’t jump to my order, i’ll plant a brace of bullets in his belly!”
and so rebellion ceases; the five come off their gloomings and their grumblings, and spring to their work of sailing the brig. it is labor night and day, however, for all aboard; but the winds blow the fever away, the gales favor them, one and all they seem to have worn out the evil fortune which dogged them out of kingston. the king george’s packet comes safe, at the last of it, into whitehaven—-first mate jack paul and his crew of five looking for the lack of sleep like dead folk walking the decks.
donald, currie & beck pay a grateful salvage on brig and cargo to first mate jack paul and the five, for bringing home the brig. this puts six hundred pounds into the pockets of first mate jack paul, and one-fifth as much into the pockets of each of the five. then donald, currie & beck have first mate jack paul to dinner with the firm.
“we’ve got a ship for ye,” says shipowner donald, as the wine is being passed. “ye’re to be captain.”
“captain!” repeats first mate jack paul. “a ship for me?”
“who else, then!” returns shipowner donald. “ay! it’s the crantully castle, four hundred tons, out o’ plymouth for bombay. ye’re to be captain; besides, ye’re to have a tenth in the cargo. and now if that suits ye, gentlemen”—addressing shipowners currie & beck—“let the firm of donald, currie & beck fill up the glasses to the crantully castle and its new captain, jack paul.”
