The Dark Sea-Horse by Charley Wood Read online

  All-Story Weekly, September 9, 1916

  The Dark Sea-Horse

  by Charley Wood

  APTAINS WAGG, Stubbier, and

  hands on his apron as he did so.

  Swiggles—retired masters of a

  “There she be, on the first page,”

  C limited tonnage of sail—having returned Captain Wagg, indicating the finished their evening meal, dutifully maltreated Enterprise with the stem of lighted their pipes and proceeded to his pipe. “Run a eye over her yourself.”

  pump the atmosphere of their shiplike Spreading the paper on the table cottage full of navy-plug smoke.

  under the swinging-lamp, the other two While Captain Swiggles snarled

  greedily absorbed the following: over his job of clearing up the mess gear, Captain Stubbler stared dreamily through SALTY BOYS’ CLUB WILL HOLD

  the portholes at the darkening bay, and GRAND YACHT RACE.

  Captain Wagg hauled on his side-

  whiskers and puckered his brows over an On Saturday next the Salty Boys’

  evening edition of the Stapleton Yacht Club will hold a race for sailing Enterprise.

  yachts at Gravesend Bay, and all Outside the darkness deepened till Stapleton is advised and invited to turn it made shadowy outlines of the full-out; for it learned from authoritative rigged mast they had stepped into the sources that the boys are out to smash a front yard, and the brass gun, which was record or so. It will be free for all so far still warm from its sunset boom. Farther as size and rig are concerned, providing down, on the next corner, there came a owners are members of the club—

  series of lightninglike flashes as the bartender of the Dog-Watch Cafe applied

  “Salty Boys!” sneered Captain

  a match to his lamps.

  Swiggles at this point. “What ain’t never While these things were in

  been out o’ sight o’ land in their lives, progress, Captain Wagg sat without prob’ly.”

  turning a page and gazed at a half column

  “Gimme a flat-bowed, square-

  of well-headlined news. With a final rigged brick-scow, with a bandanna fer a grunt he hove the paper to the deck and sail, an’ I’ll go arount that course twice played a tattoo on the brass-bound spit-while their fastest boat is hoistin’ ’er gaff kit with his pipe.

  topsail,” asserted Captain Stubbier.

  “What ’re you gruntin’ about?”

  “Then imagine what I’d do to

  inquired Captain Swiggles from over his

  ’em!” returned Captain Wagg.

  dish-water.

  “If I had my way of it,” grumbled

  “These harbor swabs what thinks

  Captain Swiggles as he returned to the they can sail boats makes me sick. Expect kitchen, “all these moderns what thinks to break records! Blaw!”

  they can sail boats ’ud be hauled aboard

  “What’s that gab?” asked Captain insane asylums an’ battened down.”

  Stubbier, and Captain Swiggles came After a five-minute silence,

  briskly in from the kitchen, wiping his Captain Wagg rose and went noiselessly

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  toward the door.

  “Any scow’s worth a million o’

  “Where you goin’?” asked

  the size drinks you give,” said the Captain Stubbler.

  captain. “What rig is she?”

  “Down to have a grog er so with

  “What you salty guys call a two-

  Jerry afore turnin’ in,” replied Captain masted schooner, I think.”

  Wagg, and slammed the door behind him.

  “Where do she lay?”

  The Dog-Watch was devoid of

  “Right off there”—pointing

  customers; and only the bartender, round toward the bay—“tied to a pair o’

  and red, and somehow resembling the barrels.”

  beverages he sold, was there to greet him

  “Barrels!” scoffed the skipper.

  when he entered.

  “You mean buoys.”

  “Ev’nin’, cap’n,” were his words

  “Buoys er barrels—what do I

  as he ran his towel along the bar with care?” replied the bartender snappily. “I machine-like precision. He selected a deal in barrels and speaks accordin’.”

  certain bottle, poured a sparing amount of With his elbows on the bar and

  its contents in a glass and set it before his his hands in his spreading side-whiskers, guest.

  the captain thought deeply for a moment.

  The skipper eyed the exact

  Suddenly his whole manner changed.

  meagerness of the draft with a tinge of

  “Ain’t you a member o’ the Salty disgust.

  Boys?” he asked.

  “What’s this yacht race gonner be

  “Sure. They made me a hon’ary

  like, Jerry?” he asked.

  member into it the last racket they had

  “Nothin’ much,” replied the

  here. They tried to crawl out of it when bartender readily. “Them guys are only a they got sober, but it didn’t go with me.”

  bunch o’ would-be dudes tryin’ to sail The skipper leaned forward and

  boats and act like millionaires. I wouldn’t spoke softly but with emphasis:

  be seen into it.” After a short silence he

  “That boat ain’t doin’ you no

  added: “Know any guy wantin’ to buy a good layin’ there idle, Jerry. What do you good boat?”

  say to puttin’ ’er in the race?”

  The skipper, immediately

  Jerry swallowed interestedly.

  interested, withdrew his hand from his

  “But I can’t sail ’er,” he said.

  glass.

  “You let me master ’er an’ I’ll

  “Who

  owns

  ’er?”

  jam ’er how across the line fer first

  “Me.”

  prize!” said the skipper, coming down

  “How did a stingy lubber like you hard on the bar with his fist. “There ain’t come by a boat?” asked the captain.

  none o’ them land ninnies can sail a boat

  “Got her from two gents who

  agin a real sailorman. I’ll be the dark carries plenty o’ licker into their seahorse!”

  stomachs an’ no money into their The bartender gradually became

  pockits,” replied the bartender, and fell to enthused as he thought over the

  scratching his bald head. “They got me proposition, and the captain seized the for a big bill, so, when they says: ‘Out opportunity to continue.

  there in the bay lays all we got, floatin’

  “Think how nice that silver cup

  on the water, with good sails and good

  ’ud look on that shelf in front o’ the wood into her’—I took her.”

  lookin’ glass.”

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  Jerry looked at the shelf and

  happens to them Salty Boys Saturday.”

  thrust forward his hand.

  For a long time the skipper posed

  “Put her there, cap’n,” he

  in front of the bar with a huge hand commanded; “we’ll do it!”

  curled around a dainty cocktail glass and They pumped hands for a straight outlined his plans in a soft but assertive half minute. This rite over, the bartender voice. When he arrived at the cottage it turned to finger among his glasses and was in darkness, and he turned in bottles, and was soon engaged in the noiselessly to the accompaniment of the myster
ies of mixology. But the captain’s uninterrupted snores of his mates.

  brows did not lose their thought-pucker as he watched him.

  II.

  “There’s conditions to these

  articles, Jerry,” said he finally as he His groans were profuse as he slid from whittled a pipeful of tobacco on the bar.

  his bunk the following morning. During

  “What be they?”

  breakfast he complained of pains

  “This has got to be kept a secret throughout his hull, and hardly was it atween me an’ you. I wants to work it as downed before he hauled a sea-bag from a sooprise on the boys at the cottage.

  his sea-chest and painfully began filling it Besides, if they finds it out they’ll want with gear.

  to ship with me an’ skipper ’er

  “I can’t stand it no longer, so I’m theirselves—an’ she won’t never win goin’ to the houspital fer a few days, with three men tryin’ to command ’er.

  shipmates,” he explained, taking care to They ain’t to know a word till we stows lean over his sea-bag as he spoke.

  that first prize. See?”

  Captain Stubbier ceased his

  “Sure thing, if you says so. But operations on a porthole rim, with oil, how do we do it?”

  sand, and canvas, to stare; and Captain

  “You leaves that to me. Them two Swiggles ceased rattling his pans to is as easy to fool as a pair o’ African listen.

  cabin-boys. To-morrow, that’s Tuesday,

  “Can’t stand what no longer?”

  I’m took sick an’ goes to the houspital fer demanded Captain Stubbler.

  a few days.” Here the skipper interjected

  “This intermittent rheumatism

  a huge wink with his starboard eye. “An’

  what I got. My legs is as stiff as rudder while I’m in the houspital there’s a posts an’ creaks like rusty hinges when I Captain Samuel Jimson comes aboard navigates.”

  your hooker an’ takes command. See?”

  “Where was you last night?”

  “Haw—aw—aw!” laughed the

  demanded Captain Swiggles

  bartender, understandingly. “I never suspiciously.

  knew you had so much cleverness into

  “Is that the way to treat a sick you, Cap’n Jimson, bust my bottles if I shipmate?” inquired Captain Wagg did! You’re a dark sea-horse, all right.”

  injuredly. “Who knows but I’m anchored

  “What’s the jammer’s name?”

  in that houspital fer the rest o’ my life?”

  “The Hannah Snider.”

  His hearers immediately became

  “A purty name,” commented the

  thoughtful.

  captain. “An’ she’s owned by the best

  “I’m sorry if it’s that bad,” said bar-keep in Staten Island. Here’s to what Captain Swiggles suddenly.

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  “So be I,” said Captain Stubbler.

  But Captain Wagg only sagged under it

  “An’ to prove it we gives you a hand to a certain, wobbly extent, and limped with your gear.”

  toward the door.

  Simultaneously they went about

  “Good-by, old mates,” he said in helping him, and insisted that he sit down a voice charged with dramatic pathos; and rest while they did it. They even and as they watched him in silent wonder scoured the cottage for things that would he limped down the man-roped steps and add to his comfort, such as reading matter laboriously disappeared around the in the shape of almanacs, and ditties, and corner.

  tried remedies from the old Molly Bell’s

  “Smarsh me if he ain’t a braver

  medicine chest.

  man than I thought!” commented Captain

  “Here’s a pouch o’ fresh ’baccer I Swiggles.

  chipped yesterday,” offered Captain

  “I’m proud to have him for a

  Swiggles as he packed it away. “An’ a shipmate,” returned Captain Stubbler. “I box o’ matches for to smoke ’er.”

  hope he soon gets well.”

  “There’s a few jerks o’ grog in

  this bottle I’m hidin’ inside this watch III.

  coat,” solicited Captain Stubbler.

  When they had finished, the bag

  IT was two hours later the Dog-Watch’s was bulged to such an extent with the bartender saw a smooth-faced, leanish-comforts within that it was only by joint looking man, attired in skipper’s rig, force they were able to haul closed the enter. He had a well packed sea-bag on top with the lanyard. Captain Swiggles his shoulder which he tossed into a then hoisted it to his shoulder.

  corner before coming to a confident stand

  “I cargoes the bag,” he said, “an’

  before the bar.

  you, Stubbler, you lays aholt of his arm

  “What ‘ll it be?” asked Jerry as he an’ tows him along like. By good sailin’

  held a glass up to the light to admire the we makes the horspital in fifteen minits.”

  polish he had been rubbing on it.

  At this plan-destroying suggestion

  “You know,” replied the stranger.

  Captain Wagg sprang to his feet.

  The bartender regarded him in

  “No thankee, boys,” he said,

  surprise as he continued to polish the reaching for the bag on Swiggles’s glass.

  shoulder. “I appreciate it, but I goes

  “How do I know what you drink

  aboard carryin’ my bag like a sailorman, when I never seen you before?” he er not at all.”

  wanted to know.

  His mates paused in profound

  The lean man swayed back and

  surprise.

  laughed loudly at the ceiling.

  “But you carn’t be carryin’ of a

  “You mean to say you don’t know

  heavy bag in your condition,” reasoned me, Jerry?” he demanded.

  Captain Swiggles. “You let me—”

  The bartender eyed him keenly

  “Put ’er aboard my shoulder, I tell for a moment, and at the end of it the you,” interrupted Captain Wagg firmly.

  glass slipped from his hand and crashed Captain

  Swiggles

  exasperatedly on the floor.

  rolled the bag to his shoulder and stood

  “My barrels, if it ain’t Captain back to watch the cave-in he expected.

  Wagg —er Jimson!” he choked.

  The Dark Sea-Horse 5

  “Where’s them side-fans you had onto Immediately he began his

  your face?”

  inspection. He ran an eye over her

  “Down at the barber’s,” replied

  rigging, along her free-board, and opened the skipper, rubbing his smooth, grinning the companion-way slide to peek into the cheeks. “I was sorry to dowse ’em, cabin. Lastly his eye fell on a group of though, because it took me thirty-five picturesque figures about the capstan and year to raise them good whiskers. How engaged in a loud, sailorly argument as to do I look?”

  how the buoy line should be rove for the The bartender replied that he

  race.

  looked ten pounds thinner, and had The captain put his hand to his

  suddenly turned from an old man into a mouth, and his voice fell on them with young one, and offered to bet he could the effect of a thunderclap.

  walk into the cottage, and the boys would

  “Jump along here, you school o’

  never know Turn.

  ringtails, and get my gear aboard.”

  “In the first place, I weren’t never At the sound of that voice the

  no old man,” replied the skipper, a trifle crew, like one man, jumped to obey it.

  insulted. “An’ in the next place I ain’t But as their eyes fell on the spare-faced, fool enough to board the cottage when lanky individual standing on the I�
�m supposed to be sick.”

  quarterdeck they halted.

  “Some o’ them swell-head Salty

  “An’ who the ’ell may you be?”

  Boys ’ll wish you was sick next

  one with a battered cap perched on his Saturday,” countered the bartender head made bold to ask.

  quickly.

  Captain Wagg snapped his

  “You bet your main-hailliards!

  smooth jaws and strode forward.

  How’s the hooker?”

  “Over that rail with you an’ get

  “All ready. I hired a crew o’ six my dunnage aboard er it’ll cost you a guys, an’ every one had a discharge from smashed hamper to find out who I am,”

  deep-sea onto him.”

  he said.

  “Then that’s where I goes,” said

  “Do you realize you’re talkin’ to the skipper, abruptly reaching for his bag.

  the mate o’ this wagon?” demanded the

  “Right from now till Saturday morning I man under the battered cap.

  spends my time trimmin’ her an’ them

  “What do you think when I tells

  swabs into shape. S’long.”

  you I’m ’er skipper, you bucko cheese-He went out followed by the

  head?”