Chapter XIV
Such a cleaning up and turning over! For two nights, one in the chart-
room and one on the cabin sofa, I have soaked myself in sleep, and I am
now almost stupid with excess of sleep. The land seems very far away. By
some strange quirk, I have an impression that weeks, or months, have
passed since I left Baltimore on that bitter March morning. And yet it
was March 28, and this is only the first week in April.
I was entirely right in my first estimation of Miss West. She is the
most capable, practically masterful woman I have ever encountered. What
passed between her and Mr. Pike I do not know; but whatever it was, she
was convinced that he was not the erring one. In some strange way, my
two rooms are the only ones which have been invaded by this plague of
vermin. Under Miss West's instructions bunks, drawers, shelves, and all
superficial woodwork have been ripped out. She worked the carpenter from
daylight till dark, and then, after a night of fumigation, two of the
sailors, with turpentine and white lead, put the finishing touches on the
cleansing operations. The carpenter is now busy rebuilding my rooms. Then will come the painting, and in two or three more days I expect to be settled back in my quarters.
Of the men who did the turpentining and white-leading there have been
four. Two of them were quickly rejected by Miss West as not being up to
the work. The first one, Steve Roberts, which he told me was his name, is an interesting fellow. I talked with him quite a bit ere Miss West sent him packing and told Mr. Pike that she wanted a real sailor.
This is the first time Steve Roberts has ever seen the sea. How he
happened to drift from the western cattle-ranges to New York he did not
explain, any more than did he explain how he came to ship on the
Elsinore. But here he is, not a sailor on horseback, but a cowboy on
the sea. He is a small man, but most powerfully built. His shoulders
are very broad, and his muscles bulge under his shirt; and yet he is
slender-waisted, lean-limbed, and hollow-cheeked. This last, however, is
not due to sickness or ill-health. Tyro as he is on the sea, Steve
Roberts is keen and intelligent . . . yes, and crooked. He has a way of
looking straight at one with utmost frankness while he talks, and yet it
is at such moments I get most strongly the impression of crookedness. But
he is a man, if trouble should arise, to be reckoned with. In ways he
suggests a kinship with the three men Mr. Pike took so instant a
prejudice against--Kid Twist, Nosey Murphy, and Bert Rhine. And I have
already noticed, in the dog-watches, that it is with this trio that Steve
Roberts chums.
The second sailor Miss West rejected, after silently watching him work
for five minutes, was Mulligan Jacobs, the wisp of a man with curvature
of the spine. But before she sent him packing other things occurred in
which I was concerned. I was in the room when Mulligan Jacobs first came
in to go to work, and I could not help observing the startled, avid
glance he threw at my big shelves of books. He advanced on them in the
way a robber might advance on a secret hoard of gold, and as a miser
would fondle gold so Mulligan Jacobs fondled these book-titles with his
eyes.
And such eyes! All time bitterness and venom Mr. Pike had told me the
man possessed was there in his eyes. They were small, pale-blue, and
gimlet-pointed with fire. His eyelids were inflamed, and but served to
ensanguine the bitter and cold-blazing intensity of the pupils. The man
was constitutionally a hater, and I was not long in learning that he
hated all things except books.
"Would you care to read some of them?" I said hospitably.
All the caress in his eyes for the books vanished as he turned his head
to look at me, and ere he spoke I knew that I, too, was hated.
"It's hell, ain't it?--you with a strong body and servants to carry for
you a weight of books like this, and me with a curved spine that puts the
pot-hooks of hell-fire into my brain?"