THE CAPTURED CUNARDER.
BY WILLIAM H. RIDEING.
(1853-1918)
I.
IT
was the night of an Irish debate in the House of
Commons, and among the listeners in the Stranger's
Gallery, who were twisting themselves this way and
that to catch a glimpse of the speakers — listeners
mostly from the provinces, who willingly put up
with the atmosphere of a common lodging-house for the
sake of so unusual a treat — was a handsome man, who, dark
naturally, had been tanned by exposure to tropic winds and
suns to the complexion of a young and healthy Indian —
brown but not sallow, the full undercurrent of blood
making itself visible like the glow of a ruby in his cheeks.
Plainly, from certain movements, as well as from the cut of
his clothes, he was a seafaring man of some sort, though,
unlike most seafaring men, who when ashore are very deliberate
in their bearing, he had a quick intense way with him,
particularly with his eyes, which were so sweeping and
penetrating that anybody directly behind them might have
been conscious of them, though their habit was to look
directly ahead. Nothing was unobserved by him, nothing
unheard. But the fault of so much intelligence was that
his mobile face had no capacity for the concealment of feeling
— approval or disapproval was at once recorded on it for
all the world to mark.
The home-rule members were up in arms, and no dictionary
in the world could show more synonymes of "vileness"
than the member for Castle Magillicuddy had found to
"hurl" (his own word) at the gentlemen on the opposition
benches.
The division bell rang sharply in the lobbies, on the
terrace, in the corridors, and in the dining-room, and members
scurried-without regard to convenience, to dinners, and
conversations just begun to be counted with their respective
parties.
The government was defeated on the division, and the
young man in the gallery, who had been listening with much
greater interest than those around him, rose with a petulant
shrug, and passing down the winding stairs, at the foot of
which a policeman towered over a rank of candidates for
vacant places, soon found himself in the brilliantly lighted
Palace Yard.
The beauty of the scene here held him for a moment, but
he could not feel that it was in any part his. What had he
just heard, just witnessed, in the House? The heel of the
Englishman on the necks of his down-trodden compatriots;
arrogance and contempt in reply to that eloquence from the
member for Castle Magillicuddy — Castle Magillicuddy, the
very place of his birth, the prettiest spot in all Kerry.
He was not of the brooding kind, however; it was seldom
in an adventurous life, full of vicissitude, that he had been
able to stay, or turn off, a gayety which played in him like a
fountain, and burst out with all the more vigor after a
stoppage. Hopeless it might be for Ireland in there, but things
would be evened yet. He had a plan of his own to bring
about a reckoning-an original plan, as audacious as it was
original.
Chuckling as he thought of it, he reached the Embankment,
and walked leisurely towards Hungerford Bridge,
stopping now and then to lean with his arms against the
stone wall, over which he could look up and down the river.
There was nothing suspicious about him, and he was
unobserved. Had he been obliged to submit to an inquisition
he could have given a very satisfactory account, with
ample opportunities for verification. He was Felix O'Grady,
mariner, aged thirty-four, captain of the screw-steamer
Rosario, 1100 tons net register, then lying in the Waterloo
Dock, Liverpool, and shipping part of an armament for a
fast cruiser which the Argentine Republic had recently built.
A young man for such a post? That is explained by the
fact that the Rosario was only a tramp steamer; though it
should be added that O'Grady was qualified by natural
abilities and experience to command a better ship. He had
been a junior officer in the Cunard service before he got his
master's certificate, but he had lost his berth there through
his too rampant patriotism.
His present visit to London, in answer to a summons of
the consul-general, was to end the following day, and he
expected to sail for Buenos Ayres within two weeks.
He turned from the river to look through his cigar smoke
at the passing crowd, and the prospect of finding any friend
in it was so little within the bounds of chance that when
a familiar face appeared it seemed to be part of a reverie
rather than substance. But substance it was, corroborated
by moonlight and lamp-light — the face of an old companion
and shipmate, Domenick Quinn, who when last heard of had
been a gunner in the United States navy. He was dressed
like a sailor ashore — in blue pilot-cloth, with a soft felt hat.
"Domenick, old man!"
Domenick did not seem to have the nerve of a gunner as
the hand of his friend fell on his shoulder. He made a dive
forward, as if to escape; and then recognizing O'Grady,
whispered, in a shaken voice: "'S-s-h! Come over here,"
dragging him across the way, where the shadows were
deeper.
"What's the matter with you? And I've not seen you
these five years," said O'Grady.
Domenick showed no immediate signs of rejoicing at the
occasion, but looking quickly before and behind, compelled
his friend by an interlocked arm to follow him. "Don't
stand still, and don't talk as if you were sp'aking to a
multitude," he said. "I'm engaged on important business."
"Business? And what business is that?"
Domenick moved a square brown-paper parcel he was
carrying from one arm to the other and glanced at it
curiously. "Business," he repeated.
"And what's that you've got there, Domenick, that seems
to make you so un'asy?"
"'Tis a musical box, that is," replied Domenick, again
shifting the package.
"A musical box! And how many tunes will it play?"
"It will play the 'Wearin' of the Green," for instance.
Anything else?"
"Yes, indeed! 'Tis a great instrument for patriotic airs.
It plays 'Let Erin remember the days of owld.'"
O'Grady laughed; he understood now. "And what are
you going to do with it?" he inquired.
"It's a present I'm taking over there" (nodding at the
Houses of Parliament) — "a present from owld Ireland to
Salisbury and Balfour."
"Let me feel the heft of it."
Domenick reluctantly surrendered the dangerous package
and all its pleasing potentialities.
"Give it back to me, O'Grady," he said.
But O'Grady did not heed, and again crossed the roadway
to the wall of the Embankment, his friend following
unwillingly, as he did not like either the crowd or the lights.
"Give it back to me," he muttered, with an oath.
"That's all right, Domenick. It's safer for you, old man,
when it's with me. You were always a musician. Well do
I remember how you used to warble the ballads for us in the
old times! And have you seen Maggie Burke lately? And
when did you come over? And how's her father? Oh,
Domenick, have a smoke, owld man, and tell me about New
York."
Domenick's face was not a pleasant one. He had the
heavy jaw and elongated upper lip of tenacious purpose,
eyes in narrow slits, a blunt nose, a low forehead, a smoky
complexion. He was uneasy, but, subject to the quiet
magnetism of O'Grady, he lighted the cigar that was offered,
and leaned his shoulders and elbows against the Embankment
wall, facing the passers-by.
O'Grady diverted him, and led him away from himself by
talk of the ship in which he had come over, and of various
acquaintances in New York, especially of Maggie Burke and
her friends.
"Did you not hear that her father had been appointed
Street Commissioner?" Quinn asked.
"Not a word. Is it Street Commissioner he is? That's
the softest thing of all, is it not?"
"It is that."
O'Grady sighed. He had had tender experiences with
Maggie Burke.
"She's in Europe now," Quinn added, "and —"
There was a soft splash in the river — the brown paper
parcel had slipped out of O'Grady's arm and floated off
with the tide.
Domenick swore; but the culprit showed no concern; he
irritated his friend still more by laughing.
"Curse you, O'Grady! You did that on purpose."
"And what if I did? 'Twas only a musical box, you
said."
"Oh, but what will I say to Cronin and the Executive
Committee?"
"I'll fix that for you. See here, now — jump in this cab,
and go along with me."
A hansom at O'Grady's signal had pulled up at the curb,
and Domenick, obedient to any suggestion, as before,
entered it. The address given to the driver was a lodging-house
near Eusten Square. As soon as they had started,
O'Grady became serious.
"Don't speak of musical boxes," he said. "Come to
Liverpool with me to-morrow. I've got a job for you. A
gunner? Sure, you're the very man we want. There's to
be a meeting of the Council in Liverpool to-morrow night.
Cronin and all the boys will be there. I'll make it all right
with them, never fear. Musical boxes! Oh, but they are
foolish things to play with. Maybe you set them for a good
old Irish tune, and what is it you have? — 'Rule, Britannia,'
or 'God Save the Queen.' And when you think they're
going so nicely, where do you find yourself? Well, just think
of Martin Shea boxed up in Portland Prison this very night
— another martyr to the cause!"
Meanwhile the brown-paper parcel was being carried
seaward by the tide without sinking, touching this object and
that as harmlessly as a bit of drift-wood or a cork. It bumped
against one of the piers of London Bridge, and then floated
in among the channel steamers moored alongside St.
Katherine's Wharf, lingering under their paddle-wheels and
propellers. Then it grounded in the black noxious mud of
Limehouse, and remained there till the swash of a passing
tug-boat set it free to continue its journey down the river,
drifting from one bank to the other, and dancing in the swell
of the passing vessels, then creeping, half-submerged, in the
middle of the stream. Such is the march of Death — near us
when we know it not, turning aside when it would be so
easy to strike us. But for all its soaking the brown-paper
parcel preserved its capacity for fatal mischief. As the
dawn crept over the Essex marshes all who were out-of-doors
in the raw spectral mist heard a loud explosion, and those
who were anywhere near the bank of the river saw a mass
of splintered wood thrown high into the air. An old hulk
beached in the mud below Woolwich had been blown up —
how or by whom was not known, and the police investigation
discovered nothing.
II.
The next evening a secret meeting was held in the back
parlor of a house in the north end of Liverpool, when
Captain Felix O'Grady explained to a dozen men present the
scheme he had mentioned to Domenick Quinn.
"Isn't it good enough for you, gentlemen? Could you
have anything better? Tell me if any of you have a prettier
device for striking at the enemy!" he cried, as the drinks
were tossed off.
He was flushed and excited — even eloquent as he went
into the details; all of the twelve men present were with him
as to the main features of the plan except Cronin, of whom
Domenick had spoken the evening before. Cronin was not
satisfied, and was disposed to oppose the plan. He was a
gross oily man of the "heeler" type, bulky of frame, with a
husky grumbling voice, a solitaire diamond pin fixed to a
shirt front of unusual amplitude, and fingers so fat that the
rings hooping them gave them the grooved appearance of a
corkscrew.
"It would have been better to have let Domenick Quinn
do what the committee instructed him to do and sent him
over here to do. That's the only way you'll ever get
satisfaction for Ireland, now mind me," he said. "And there
will be trouble when the Executive Committee hears of your
interference, O'Grady. 'Tis not ten days ago that we had a
meeting in Brooklyn, and every man there was in favor of
extreme measures."
"And isn't my measure extreme, Alderman? Just listen
to him, boys! I don't believe, and I never did believe, in
dynamite. 'Tis like hitting out at random in a crowd with
your eyes shut, and you're just as likely to knock off the
head of your friend as the head of your enemy. Don't
strike, I say, till you're sure 'tis an Englishman, and not
your uncle or your grandfather, that's going to tumble."
"Dynamite scares them devils, anyway; as for constitutional
agitation -
"
"I don't put faith in it myself," replied O'Grady. "There's
not much that's constitutional in what I'm after, is there?"
he added, with a laugh.
"Well, go over your scheme once more," said Cronin,
who held the purse-strings of the secret society to which all
who were there belonged. And with great gusto and vivacity
O'Grady once more divulged the plan by which he
declared he could do more mischief to the merchant shipping
of England than the Alabama,/I> had done to that of the United
States.
It will be remembered that the Rosario was a steamer of
1100 tons, then taking on board a part of the armament for
a new Argentine cruiser, including four seven-inch
quick-firing Armstrongs and eight four-pounder quick-firing
Hotchkiss guns. She had not yet shipped her crew, and
O'Grady meant that there should not be a man on board her
who was not known to him and sworn to the society then
in conclave. Two mates and two engineers he was
already provided with, all of them trustworthy, and from the
forecastle to the stoke-hole and the stoke-hole to the cabin,
there was not to be a hand whose allegiance could not be
counted on. There were also to be half a dozen passengers,
including Domenick Quinn; and though these would
appear as citizens of the United States in the ship's papers,
they would all speak with a brogue and be in league with
the captain and the crew.
The ship would be cleared without suspicion or difficulty,
and would take her departure from the Mersey for Buenos
Ayres — ostensibly for Buenos Ayres, though O'Grady had
no intention of navigating her to that port. As soon as she
was out of the Channel and out of sight of land her course
would be changed, and then she would lay to. The rapid
fire breech-loaders would be brought out of the hold and
mounted on the deck. Domenick and the others in the cabin
would cease to be passengers, and come out as members of
the ship's company.
If, meanwhile, any vessel happened to sight her and
inquire why she was lying to, she would signal, "Engines
temporarily out of order; am making repairs; need no
assistance." Again under way, she would be navigated to a
position west of Fastnet, and there again be hove to in wait
for the new Cunarder Grampania, which would sail from
Liverpool three days after her. The Grampania was to be
her prey: she was to be captured. All the armament
intended for the Argentine cruiser was to be transferred to
her, or as much of it as she could carry. Her captain, crew,
and passengers were to be put aboard the Rosario and
carried back to Liverpool, while the Grampania, a Cunarder
no more, but a privateer flying the green flag, was to sweep
the North Atlantic. As far as speed was concerned there
was nothing she could not overhaul, for on her trial trip
she had easily made twenty-four knots an hour over the
measured mile in the Clyde.
But how was a "tramp" like the Rosario, which could
not show more than twelve knots, to intercept so fast a ship?
That was a matter simple enough. Hove to on the westward-bound
track of the Cunard steamers, the Rosario would
signal as soon as the Grampania sighted her — which she was
bound to do — "My shaft is broken; I fear I am sinking,"
and the Cunard captain would immediately approach her
closely to send off boats and facilitate communication. Then
O'Grady would fire a shot across the big ship's bows, and at
the same time haul up the green flag and demand her
surrender.
"I'd give tin dollars to see owld Gallup's face when you
do that," said one of the men present, referring to the
captain of the Grampania. "He'll be that mad he'll turn ahead
full speed and try to run you down."
"Never fear, I'll be ready for him. I've no love for
Gallup," said O'Grady. "'Twas he that reported me for speaking
at that Fenian meeting ten years ago. Some of our boys
will be on the Grampania — some in the fo'c's'le, and some
in the stoke-hole," he continued, "and they'll be on the lookout
for us. There'll be enough of them to take care of
Gallup and the officers. Ay, before he knows it Gallup
and all the rest, every mother's son of them, except our boys,
will be on board the Rosario with their noses pointed at
Cape Clear. How will the Grampania do for an armed
cruiser then, with those breech-loaders on watch along the
deck and myself on the bridge? — an Admiral, but no cocked
hat, and devil a bit of pride in me that I'd be bold enough
to spake of."
An innocent and contagious peal of laughter burst from
O'Grady, so spontaneous and so joyous that it was convincing
as to the humor with which he regarded the situation
and all its contingencies.
"You're always thinking about yourself, O'Grady,"
growled Cronin.
"About myself, is it? About myself? Not that at all.
What would I be here for? What would I be losing my
post and my character for but for Ireland — God bless her!"
He was entirely sincere in this; he was uncorrupted by
any thought of self in the outcome of his conspiracy.
Cronin's wide mouth worked spasmodically on his cigar,
rolling it from corner to corner and tilting it up and down,
as though, instead of smoking it, he meant to eat it. His
bleary eyes were screwed up as he critically turned them
from O'Grady to Quinn and the others, who were more
inclined than he was to accept the plan at once.
"The schame's not bad, I'll own," he conceded, "but I'd
like to ask you a few questions, for you never had much
sinse, O'Grady. When you've got the Grampania, if you
do capture her, what then?"
"Then I mane to cruise northward and southward over
the eastward and westward transatlantic tracks."
He brought out of his pocket a small chart of the Atlantic,
and a list of sailings of the various lines from New York
and Liverpool, and showed how to almost a certainty he
could intercept all the great ships which would start from
both sides the week after the Grampania — White Star ships,
Guion ships, National ships, and Anchor Line ships, as well
as the Grampania's new sister.
"And what will you do with them?"
"It will take a deep-sea exploring expedition to find them
when I've done with them."
"Scuttle them or blow them up?" a voice inquired.
"Dynamite will be convenient," said Cronin.
"That's but a trifling daytail that we can settle after,"
replied O'Grady.
"And what will you do with the passengers and crew?"
inquired Madden, another of the company.
"The passengers and crew of the Grampania, as I've told
you, will go back to Queenstown in the Rosario. Those on
the next ship we capture we'll transfer to some sailing-ship,
or an owld tramp that isn't worth sinking — there's plenty of
them. And so on. It's all aisy enough, trust me for that."
"You'll need to be careful of our own people," said
Madden; "there'll be plenty of them in the steerage and
second cabin."
"I'll be as tinder as a father to them."
"Now don't be too aisy with any damned Englishman!
Make it as hot as blazes for every wan av thim."
"They'll wish they never heard of Kilmainham before
I'm through with some of them."
"And the spayshee? What about the spayshee?" Cronin
demanded.
"The specie, is it?" replied O'Grady. See here now,
Cronin. Do you take me for a thief that would hold up a
train for what might be in the safe? The specie will have
to go to the bottom with the ships. I wouldn't touch a cent
of it."
This was said with a splendid conviction of probity,
though it obscured the fact that sending the captured
treasure to the bottom would be quite as irreparable a wrong to
the owners as a theft. It did not satisfy Cronin, who bit
his cigar in two in the painful abstraction caused by the
thought of "boodle" lost to a world in which good liquor
costs much, and the sporting proclivities of a city father
cannot be gratified without additions to the allowances of
small-minded tax-payers.
"It's a fayasco you'll be making; I'll not vote a cent for
it," he declared, "nor take a hand in it."
O'Grady was discouraged for a moment; but he had won
the others, and seeing this, Cronin did not persist in his
opposition, though he had another point to make in his
cross-examination.
"Maybe there's a trifle that you fellows have never thought
of. What are you going to do about coal? The Grampania
won't have more than will stand her for seven days, and of
that two days' supply will be spent before you meet her."
"Give me five days on the Grampania and it's all I ask.
I'll not sweep the seas clean — I never intended that — but
what I'll do will be the greatest thing for Ireland yet."
And it was true, as he pointed out, that, barring fogs, an
armed cruiser of the speed of the Grampania, cruising northward
and southward across the tracks of the transatlantic
steamers, could within five days waylay and capture,
destroying if she choose, some if not all of the fleetest and
newest ships of the Liverpool lines.
The smoke muffled the company in its gray and blue
wreaths until Alderman Cronin's diamonds could only blink
like sparks of tobacco. O'Grady's scheme was sanctioned,
and he went down to the docks that night and slept on
board the Rosario, happy in visions of a retaliation more
effective than any his countrymen had yet thought of.
Two weeks later the Rosario left the Mersey on a mid-
night tide, and in addition to an unusually large crew she
carried many passengers, some of whom had come on board
without tickets at the moment her hawsers were slipped in
the Sandon dock. This was on a Wednesday, and the
Grampania was scheduled to sail the following Saturday.
III.
As usual, the Grampania called for the mails at Queenstown
on Sunday, and at about two in the afternoon she
slipped by Roche's Point and turned ahead full speed for
New York. Full speed with her implied a velocity
unprecedented on the sea. Her twin screws made the water in
her wake boil like rapids of Niagara, and with each throb
of her tremendous engines she reached ahead like a large
projectile from a mortar. Other ships were fast, but they
seemed at anchor as she overhauled them and lost them
astern. As she flew along the coast the passengers who
knew the headlands thought they had come closer together
than they were before, so much did she lessen the time be-
tween them. Hardly had the Old Head of Kinsale been
passed than Brow Head loomed up abeam, and long before
sunset the pillar of Fastnet appeared as a faint gray streak
upon the starboard quarter. By noon on Monday she had
logged five hundred knots, and she had settled down, as the
chief engineer said, to "a gait of twenty-one knots."
"Ay, but she's a gran' sheep," he declared. "I'll no be
a beet surprised if we put ye ashore by Friday morning. I
didna expect it, either. We've got a lot o' them Irish in
the stoke-hole, but they're working like deevils. I dinna
ken wha's the matter with them. It's no grog; they're unco'
sober. Ay, and they're singing, and that gay ye'd think
they were daft."
The captain also was in high spirits. After dinner he
seated himself in a group of pretty girls on the upper deck,
and gave chaffing answers to the questions they put to him
as an oracle possessing the key to all mysteries.
"How much horse-power has she, captain?" one of them
asked him.
"About a hundred thousand donkey-power," he said,
gravely.
"My! I should think she'd blow up!"
"Oh, that wouldn't matter! All the decks are fitted in
vertical grooves and supplied with air-chambers, so that in
event of an explosion they would rise completely out of the
hull and float in the air like the air-ships you read about.
The motion is said to be delightful — far superior to that of
a balloon."
They searched his face, but it was quite serious.
"Really!" they chorused.
"Really. And another interesting thing is that we burn
so much coal that all the cargo we can carry is fodder for
the donkeys."
It was an evening of exquisite beauty. The sea was still
but for the waves of displacement, which, like the wings of
an arrow, spread in oblique folds from the bow. A dull
gold moon was climbing out of the sea into a clear violet
sky, while the dying fires of the sunset were still glowing
in the west, and gilding cloud-made mountains and lagoons.
The well-content passengers, laughing and chattering, filled
the deck, and gave it all the animation of a city street.
"A steamer on the port bow, sir," called the lookout in
the cro'nest.
"Ay, ay."
One of the junior officers came down from the bridge to
report it to the captain, and the passengers excitedly ran to
the rail and searched the horizon. Only the keenest eyes,
helped by the most powerful glasses, could see the faint
line of a topmast pencilled some ten miles to the westward.
The captain did not leave the girls, though they were
anxious to drag him out of his chair to see the coming ship.
"Sit down, and I'll tell you about the biggest wave I ever
saw. It was in the Gulf of Pe-Chee-Lee. I was a midshipman
then, in a clipper belonging to —"
The junior officer came down again. "She's hove to,
sir," he said.
"What do you make her out to be?"
"She's about twelve hundred tons, sir; brig-rigged; low
in the water. Looks too smart for a tramp, sir; has a black
funnel with a green band, but we can't make out her
signals yet."
The captain went with him to the bridge, and in less than
half an hour the Grampania was within hailing distance of
the stranger. She was the Rosario, Captain Felix O'Grady,
bound from Liverpool to Buenos Ayres. Enough light was
left in the sky to show that she was flying the Argentine
flag. She was, she signalled, disabled, and making water
fast.
"Lower a boat and go on board, and see for yourself how
she is, Mr. Bishop," said Captain Gallup to the chief officer.
Night had closed in, but the decks were now fuller of
bustle than before. The Grampania stood up out of the
calm sea gridironed with light like a town built in terraces
on a cliff, and as soon as she came to a standstill she lay in
a lake of white froth of her own churning, and the escaping
steam roared out of her pipes like the ebullition of a newly
awakened volcano. Quartermasters ran up and down along
the deck; the bosun's whistle pierced the greater din with
its shrillness like the voice of an uncanny bird whirling
overhead. On the port side the passengers and crew hung
over the rails of the three tiers of decks, and the ship, big as
she was, listed under their weight. The captain fumed and
fretted on the bridge. He was a kindly, humane man, but
to be hove to on account of a sand-barge like that, to be
delayed several hours, and to lose the prospect of a new record
— it was a situation calling for strong language.
They saw the boat lowered, with the chief officer in the
stern-sheets, and pull away for the Rosario, heaving gently
on the swell, her course indicated by a lamp hung in the
bow. Farther away another light pricked the darkness,
and they knew it was hung over the side of the Rosario to
show where the gangway was. Then came twenty lingering
minutes of suspense and impatience, with a double
measure of duration in which watches seemed to stop and the
ship's bells to be suspended from their customary
chronicles.
"She's coming back now, sir," said the third officer to the
captain — the "extra third," for the Grampania had a double
set of officers as well as double engines.
"Coming back! What's he been loafing so long for? I
tell you, the ships have improved in my time, but I'll be
hanged if the young fellows in the service have."
He impatiently shoved the arm of the telegraph over until
the indicator stood opposite the sector marked "Stand by,"
and the chief engineer himself sent the reply to show that
the order had been received.
The boat was now close alongside, and instead of the crew
of ten with which she had started, twenty men or more
climbed like monkeys up the ladder which hung down
the port side of the Grampania. The officer who stood
at the gangway thought some of the faces were unfamiliar,
though he saw two or three others — not more of the crew,
and Mr. Bishop had not come back.
"Who are these fellows? Where's the chief officer?" he
demanded.
"He staid aboard the other ship. These fellows belong
to her."
This was said without any of the usual marks of
respect by one of the seamen, who pushed the angry officer
aside, and disappeared in the crowd on deck.
Meanwhile another boat from the Rosario, unlighted and
unobserved, had come up to the Grampania on the starboard
side, which was deserted. Quietly and quickly another
ladder was lowered for her by two fo'c's'le hands who were in
the plot, and fully thirty men swarmed on board, with
Domenick Quinn at the head of them. An order was whispered
among them, and they vanished in the blur of shadow and
confusing patches of illumination forward. They were
re-enforced immediately by a third boat, which, like the
second, crept alongside without attracting attention.
The captain had lost all patience. He knew the
Grampania's boat had returned, but no one came to report to him,
till he sent a quartermaster for the officer stationed at the
gangway.
"Let his boat come back without him? Sent no report?
Staying on board the other ship? The man must be mad!
Blow the whistle there three times, and see if you can hail
them. Confound him! I've a good mind to leave him
there. Forty minutes gone — fourteen knots out of the run!
Great heavens! what are we? Are we a bumboat, or a
missionary schooner, or a steam-lighter? Here you, Mr.
Ruddock, take the boat off again and bring some satisfactory
information. I'll be —"
He could not finish; he was interrupted by a seizure
which took his speech and breath away, and left him dazed
as by a stroke of apoplexy. The impossible had happened;
the unimaginable thing had come to pass. A strong arm
was drawn about his neck, like a rope, and his arms and
legs were no longer free. He struggled, and attempted to
raise his voice, but he was powerless — as powerless as he
would have been from amazement had he been ungagged
and unfettered.
"Now you'll go and get some information yourself, old
Blowhard," a voice whispered in his ear, "but I don't
believe you'll find it satisfactory. Don't be afraid, though.
No harm will come to you if you behave like a gentleman."
Afraid! The commander of the Grampania, an Englishman,
an officer, and a gentleman, afraid on the bridge of
his own ship! He made a mad effort to release himself and
take satisfaction for the insult, but it was unavailing. He
was quickly lowered, at the end of a signal halyard, from
the bridge to one of the boats alongside, for conveyance to
the Rosario.
There was not an officer of the Grampania who had not
been similarly surprised and made captive by the boarders;
all of the navigators were crowded into the mess-room,
under a heavily armed guard, while the engineers were
hustled out of their berths (those who had been off duty), and
out of the engine-room into the steerage hospital, at the
door of which Domenick Quinn placed two of his men,
with orders to shoot down any one attempting to escape.
As O'Grady had predicted — as it is but fair to say he
hoped — no bloodshed was necessary, however. The surprise
paralyzed the whole ship, arrested all independence of
action, and turned men who had been resolute and intelligent
into an attitude of benumbed docility. Any reasonable
contingency they might have risen to and circumvented —
the accidents of fog, collision, overwhelming seas — but they
could not comprehend, much less grapple with, what had
befallen them, it seemed so unreal, so impossible.
The news reached the passengers slowly and through
conflicting rumors and surmises, treated at first with incredulity
and scoffing merriment, and then, as it was confirmed
piecemeal, with indignation, alarm, and hysteria. But for an
account of how they fared we can quote from a Herald
reporter's interview with Mr. Alonzo Butts, the buyer for a
dry-goods house in Walker Street:
"Well, sir, I had just lighted my second cigar after
getting on the outside of a small and elegant dinner, and was
whooping up the boys for an auction pool, when the Rosario
was first sighted. All the fellows ran out of the smoking-room
to see her when it was reported that she was disabled,
and I put my nose out for a minute, just to get a smell of
her. But I'm no yearling, and a ship at sea is no more
novelty to me than a bobtail car. I've been crossing the pond
and spreading myself over two continents these twenty
years, and have had some tough times, too. I was in the
Batavia that time she broke her shaft and was towed into
the Azores, and we wasn't heard of for six weeks. I looked
round and spoke to an old Liverpool jack, and I could
see that it was going to be an all-night job bringing the
crew of the Rosario aboard the Grampania, for the old
salt told me that this was what they were going to do.
The smoking-room was empty, so I just went and did
what I always do when I'm lonesome — I curled myself up
in a corner of the sofa, and slept the sleep of the innocent,
the just, and the beautiful. I guess it must have been
about half past nine when I woke. The steward was shaking
me, as pale as a ghost. 'Wake hup, sir! wake hup!'
says he. 'There's a mutiny! They 'av' chucked the capt'in
overboard, and they say as the chieft officer's murdered.
Wake hup, sir.' 'Don't be a derned fool,' says I. 'Mutiny,
eh? Well, when there's fun of that sort goin' on I'm in
for it every time. Mutiny? I'm a free and enlightened
American citizen, but when there's talk of mutiny I am a
born despot, with myself on the throne, as often as your
Waterbury ticks, and don't you forget it!' I was madder
than all Bloomingdale — that steward was such a chump —
and I wrestled myself together and went on deck, feeling
all the while that there was thunder in the air. 'Hello,
commodore!' says I to the old salt I've spoken of. 'There's
a born idiot in the smoking-room who says the Statue of
Liberty has come down from her perch and there's piracy
on the high seas. Have a smoke, mariner?' Well, I have my
sensibilities just as much as any of the Four Hundred, and
when that ancient sea-dog put his forearm against my neck,
and yelled out, 'Here, Pat, is a duffer you've lost sight of,'
and I was hustled down the companionway into the saloon —
well, I was hurt and crushed, and ready to take a long
farewell to all my glory. The saloon was just like it is when
there's to be a concert for the Seaman's Orphanage — every
seat filled, everybody sittin' there like children in a
Sunday-school, all feeling very good and rather depressed. But
standing at the four doors there was, instead of a lot of gaping
stewards, as tough a gang as ever I saw, all armed with
revolvers, and all of them with eyes right round their heads,
like a guard at Sing Sing. A youngish good-looking fellow
then jumps up — I hadn't seen him come in — and makes a
speech with a brogue as soft as a feather bed. ''Tis the
fortunes of war and not myself that's to blame for all the
inconvenience I'm causin' you, ladies and gentlemen; but 'tis
only inconvenience and not sufferin' that will come out of
it, provided you trust yourselves to me, and when you've
had a day or two to consider the matter, as you will before
you get to Queenstown, you'll own, generous in your feelings
as I can see you all are, that you're glad to have done this
thing for poor old Ireland. 'Tis myself that would like to
go back to Queenstown with you, and see you safe there,
but I'm wanted here more than there, and I'll have to trust
you to Captain Gallup. The Rosario is well found, and a
comfortable little ship, and if you're not treated as well as
I'd treat you myself, all you've got to do is to send a letter
to me on board the Grampania at any time.'"
Beyond this point it is not necessary to follow the narrative
of Mr. Butts. All night long boats were passing
between the two ships, which rose and fell as if breathing on
the gentle swell. A full moon flooded the sea with light
so strong that it was as day. The armament originally in
tended for Argentina, or as much of it as had been picked
out as being desirable for its new purpose, was transhipped
to the Grampania on her own tubular life-rafts, which by
their buoyancy, stability, and spaciousness made the work,
carried on as it was in a calm sea, far from difficult. No
attempt was made to transfer the passengers and men until
sunrise, and then it took less than four hours; for the prisoners
were not only made to row themselves, but those who
were able to handle an oar were pressed into service, under
armed guards, to expedite the abandonment of the
Grampania by those who properly belonged to her, making trip
after trip with boat-loads of passengers.
By noon O'Grady was able to muster his forces. He had
brought 175 men with him from the Rosario, and had added
to this number 60 more of his own countrymen, chiefly firemen
and stokers, who had, either by prearrangement or
subsequent persuasion, deserted the crew of the Grampania.
That ship's complement was over 400, but it was by no
means essential to have that number to work her as an armed
cruiser, for it included over 100 cooks and stewards and deck
hands, whose business it was to attend to the passengers.
About 160 men would be needed in the engine-room, worked
in three watches, but she could do with fewer by lying to
now and then. O'Grady had misgivings that lasted as long
as a breath on a window-pane. He glanced along the deck.
Already Domenick Quinn had mounted the rapid-fire guns
in their sockets, and they were glittering in the sunshine
like forked lightning.
"Stand by the flag!" O'Grady cried. A moment afterwards
he blew a whistle, and a green banner with a golden
harp upon it streamed from the flag-staff astern, saluted in
the solitude of the ocean by three blasts from the
Grampania's fog-horn and the cheers of her new crew.
Captain Gallup was a witness on the bridge of the
Rosario. No word he knew of had pungency enough for the
occasion. The flag was dipped to him in mockery, and then
the Grampania slowly drew away, and in half an hour she
had melted out of sight as though she and all that had
happened had been of no more substance than a dream.
IV.
The news came almost at the same moment (about four in
the afternoon in Washington and nine at London) to a cabinet
minister dining some important government members of
the House of Commons, to the Secretary of the Navy as he
glumly turned over documents in his private library which
proved that three new cruisers intended to beat everything
afloat were top-heavy in a moderate gale, and to the President
himself entertaining unceremoniously some friends
who had been familiar in days when it seemed as likely that
he would be Shah of Persia as incumbent of his present office. But as it was in an evening paper, it was either laughed
at or not considered at all. Journalism is the real cause
of modern pessimism and unbelief. But in this instance the
evening paper, without premeditation and without preju-
dice to its habit, had struck a "sensation" which the slower
mediums of official communication could not allay or dispel.
Each despatch pulsing under the Atlantic was but a new
and more active excitant. The Rosario had been sighted off
Brow Head, and Mr. Bishop had come ashore to Crookhaven
with the news, which was verified, to the amazement and
dismay of two continents. An embargo was at once placed
on all ships flying the English flag which had been ready to
sail either to or from American ports. But those that were
already on the ocean and could not be intercepted — what of
them and their passengers? Small comfort was to be had in
the probability that some would escape; some also must fall
into the hands of the pirates, and there was no surmise,
however imaginative, that did not become a possibility. The
passengers might be cast adrift on the ocean in open boats,
and were an attempt made to land them in some other way,
who could tell the privation and indignities they would have
to suffer? There was nothing consoling in the triumphant
boast of some of the Irish organs that Erin's day of reckoning
had come at last, in face of the declarations of other
organs of the same bias that the Grampania had not been
captured by Irishmen at all, but by hirelings of the
Conservatives bent on working mischief to the cause of
home-rule.
The steamers due to arrive were anxiously watched for,
and underwriters raised their premiums hour by hour. At
Fire Island and Sandy Hook every puff of smoke shading
the sky and creeping up the horizon drew upon itself a sheaf
of telescopes, and a flotilla of tug-boats doing service as
scouts ran out to investigate. A Red Star Line steamer, a
French liner, and one of the emigrant boats of the
Hamburg-American Line came in on time, and reported that they had
seen nothing of the Grampania. Following them a White
Star ship was due, but the day passed and she failed to
arrive. When thirty-six hours left her still unreported, the
surmise that she had been captured solidified itself into
belief.
Despatches were rapidly exchanged between the Foreign
Office in London and the State Department at Washington,
and within two days of the arrival of the Rosario off Brow
Head the new cruiser Columbia, her row of funnels belching
smoke, passed through the Narrows of New York Harbor
and out to sea in search of the marauders, the British cruiser
Blake having in the mean while been despatched on the same
errand from Halifax.
The Blake was no longer the flag-ship, and was commanded
by Captain Mortimer Meredith, whose sobriquet in the
service, derived from his humorous habit, was "Very Merry."
A fellow must be humorous or he would never think of
going to sea, he said, and the present expedition fell in with his
disposition to regard everything as a joke and a source of
amusement.
"There's blood on the moon," he said to his executive
officers, standing with him on the bridge, "and when we've
sunk the Grampania, what next? We'll put an end to the
Flying Dutchman. Strategy is the word, my boy. Strategy,
strategy, my grandmother said to me when I spoke about the
coquetry of a girl she didn't like."
The Blake was by this time well to the eastward of the
Banks, and her engines were slowed down to less than fourteen
knots. The Grampania might be found anywhere,
but counting the chances, Captain Meredith made up his
mind that she was to be looked for to the westward of the
point where she and the Rosario had separated.
After slowing down, he took a zigzag course, steering now
southeast and then northeast, so as to alternately touch the
eastward and westward routes of the regular lines. Then
he turned the ship round and repeated the zigzagging
manœuvre, now leading northwest, then southwest.
She was going along in this way in a moderate sea, which
gave her a slight roll, when soon after midnight a light was
reported on the port bow. The stars were dimmed by a
little haze, and the moisture glistened on the deck and its
fixtures wherever a lamp threw a ray, but it was possible to
see eight or nine miles. This would not be the first ship the
Blake had spoken since leaving Halifax. She had met
several sailing-ships and four small steamers, one of the
latter reporting that two days earlier a very large and fast
steamer had borne down upon her from the northeast, de-
parting suddenly after coming within hailing distance. That
episode could be accounted for by the small value of the
rusty little "tramp" that reported it. O'Grady disdained
such quarry; no gallant highwayman would stoop to rob a
tinker when on the same heath post-chaises were moving.
The white mast-head light visible over the port bow of the
Blake, flickering, fitful, dim, when first seen, rapidly became
definite, steady, brilliant, and it was soon supplemented by
the red port light of the approaching ship, which evidently
was travelling very fast.
Captain Meredith kept his watch in his hand, timing her
to judge her rate of speed. He did not change his course,
for as both vessels were now steering they would when
abeam be not more than a mile apart-probably less than
half of that. A smile of satisfaction showed in his face as he
bent his head over the luminous bowl of the compass.
"Now if it is the Grampania, we'll have some fun with
her," he said to the executive officer. "This is my idea: if the
ships were sailing on schedule time the White Star steamer
Gigantic would be just about where we are now I've
figured it out carefully — and O'Grady will be on the lookout
for her. A nice morsel for them she'd be! Now we'll
masquerade as the Gigantic — do you see? We'll show the
White Star signals, and draw the beggar on, and keep him
near us till daybreak, and then we'll let fly at him, and
he'll find that he's got more than he can swallow. Eh?
How does that strike you, my boy?"
It struck the captain himself very humorously, and the
officers around him laughed with him at the idea — not to
have laughed would have been a subversion of discipline.
Just then the approaching ship brought her green
starboard light in range, showing that she had changed her
course as though to cross the Blake's bows, or to bring her
nearer to that vessel.
"What's she doing? What's she doing? Does the beggar
want us to run him down?"
The two ships came precariously near.
"Now then for the signals," he said to the executive
officer.
That officer blew a small silver whistle hanging from a
button of his coat, and two green lights of dazzling brilliance
flared up in the night with a strange theatric effect. The
sea boiled and feathered around the ship in the ghastly
radiance, and fragments of the fixtures on deck were protruded
out of the darkness for an instant by the sudden illumination. But there was no signal from the other ship in
response. She crossed the bows of the Blake, and then headed
to the westward, evidently with the intention of keeping her
company.
"She's going to wait for daybreak too," said Captain
Meredith. "Well, we'll keep her warm," he added, as he
went to the telegraph and set the speed at full.
The log indicated, an hour later, that his ship was making
twenty knots; but the stranger held her own so far, and
showed an equal speed. At six bells — still three hours from
sunrise — she began to drop astern, however, almost
imperceptibly.
"Getting a bit tired, eh?" said Captain Meredith. "Well,
I won't be hard on you," and he put the speed at
three-quarters.
A telltale flash and the report of a gun followed close
upon his words, and fragments of shattered metal, rivet-heads,
and splints of wire rigging fell in a shower on the
heads of all who were on the bridge. A shot from the
stranger had gone through one of the funnels and cut in
two one of the stays.
"The saucy varlet! That comes of being too soft-hearted!"
said the captain, taking his cap off to rub a slight cut on his
scalp caused by one of the fragments. "Didn't that strike
you as being rather heavy for a seven-inch gun, Mr.
Devereaux?" he asked his executive officer.
"Remarkably so, sir — remarkably so," said the executive
officer, tying his handkerchief over a cut on his wrist caused
by another fragment.
"It must have been, though. She has nothing larger than
a seven-inch gun — four seven-inch and eight four-pounders
— that was the report."
A lieutenant who had been sent to investigate the damage
done returned with one of the gunners.
"Beg pard'n, sir, but that wasn't no seven-inch gun," said
the gunner.
"What was it, then? The Grampania has nothing else."
Another flash and a shriek in the upper air seemed to be
meant for an answer.
The gunner ducked. "Blow me if that ain't a 10-inch
rifle," he said, "and it was one of them that knocked the
hole in the funnel!"
"Expects us to heave to, does he? He'll be sorry in the
morning!" the captain said, adding, to the executive officer,
"Show him the White Star signals again."
The customary night signals of a White Star ship (two
green lights) were again burned, and, closely following them,
another shot tore across the Blake's bows, without striking
her, however.
"He's sure we are the Gigantic now, and I don't like to
undeceive him; but it is most exasperating to be peppered in
this way — most exasperating! Strategy is the word; but,
Tomlinson, do you think you could touch him up a bit without
doing much damage? The worm will turn, you know."
The captain rubbed his head again, and when he withdrew
his hand it was moist with blood.
Tomlinson was the gunner. "Yes, sir," he replied, cheerily.
"I think we could — just nudge him, sir, to show him
where our feet are, so as he won't tread on 'em, sir."
One of the smaller guns of the Blake was quickly manned,
and a shot fired at the pursuing stranger as a gentle
remonstrance. It was more provocative than a vehement
protest would have been, and it at once drew on the Blake a
succession of remarkably well aimed shots, one of which
ploughed a furrow in the forward deck, while another went
through a ventilator just aft of the bridge as though the
metal had been sheet-glass.
"We must humor the beggar, I suppose," Captain Meredith
now said, rather ruefully, and gave orders to slow down
the engines and signal the other ship that he would heave
to till morning. She appeared to be satisfied with this, and
coming within a quarter of a mile of the Blake, she also
hove to, waiting for daylight.
Captain Meredith had his crew called to quarters, and did
not leave the bridge all night. Every light observable on
the other ship, every sign of life, was instantly reported to
him, but his own scrutiny anticipated the information. The
glass was never out of his hands, and seldom dropped below
his eyes, which strove to pierce the darkness until they
ached.
As the sun's approach was foretold by paling stars and a
misty whiteness it was slow in answering the questions of
the watchers, to whom its revelations came piecemeal and
delayed.
"The Grampania has got a black hull, has she not, Mr.
Devereaux?"
"Yes, sir."
"Curious. This seems to be gray."
"Effect of morning light, sir."
"No; it is gray. They must have repainted her. How
many funnels has she?"
"Two, by rights, sir."
"I thought so. What do you mean by saying 'by rights?'"
"I believe I can make out three, sir."
"So there are! No, by Jove! there are four. Yes, four
funnels and a gray hull! It is not the Grampania at all!
What the deuce is it?"
An old quartermaster was standing by. "Ax pard'n,
sir, but I know what that wessel is."
"Well, sir, what is she?"
"Ax pard'n, sir, but I don't like to say."
"Don't be an idiot! What is she?"
"Can't you see, sir? I was aboard that wessel in New
York when I was on furlough, sir, at the navy-yard. Hit's
the Columbia, sir."
It was, indeed, the new United States cruiser Columbia,
with four funnels and triple screws, which had been chasing
the English ship without a suspicion of her character, and
with a conviction that she was the captured Cunarder.
V.
Neither the most peevish of old fo'c's'le jacks nor the
least responsible of boys could stand on the bridge of the
Grampania, and observe her proportions and the completeness
of her equipment, without a thrill of pride. The
funnels slope upward like two leaning towers, and have a
circumference that would allow two railway trains to pass
through either at once. The water-line is as far below as it
would be from the cross-trees of an ordinary ship. The
cro'nest for the lookout is a hundred feet high, and such
are the luxuries, as well as the necessaries, provided that a
steam-pipe is carried up to it to keep the feet of the watch
warm in winter. Eight separate telegraphs stand in a row,
and communicate not only with the engines and the
steering-gear, but with capstans, windlasses, and deck machinery.
To stand up here and be captain of it all! O'Grady never had
harder work in his life to control his emotions than he did
as he looked fore and aft along the splendid deck and gave
the word to turn ahead full speed.
But hopeful as he was, he knew well enough that the
work before him would not be easy. Some of the men were
unruly and contumacious; he had to deal with them
peremptorily to dispossess them of their personal arms, to
attempt to imbue them with a spirit of discipline. Some of
his engineers were unfamiliar with twin-screw ships, and
with many of the new inventions which were to be found
all over the Grampania; it was necessary for them to
proceed with caution to avoid errors, which, if once made, could
hardly fail to be disastrous. Fortunately, however, one of
them had been in the ship before her capture, and he was
invaluable. Neither the fo'c's'le hands nor those in the
stoke-hole and engine-room yet understood how simply
patriotic the captain's intentions were, and the expectation
of unlimited prize-money kept them in good spirits.
During the afternoon a large steamer was sighted to the
northward, and O'Grady at once gave chase to her. She
surrendered easily, and proved to be a cattle-boat, the
Bulgaria, bound from Liverpool to Boston. Her own crew was
placed in confinement, and a prize-crew put on board, with
orders to keep in company with the Grampania.
"Why not sink her? I don't know what you are thinking
of!" Quinn complained to O'Grady.
"I keep my thoughts to myself, like a gentleman, and I'd
thank you to keep that in mind, Domenick Quinn. But
since you are an old friend, I'll tell you. I'm going to keep
her by me as a tender, and when we catch a big ship we'll
transfer the crew and passengers to her, and send her off to
Queenstown or to Halifax, so that we'll not be bothered by
them on board here."
"'Twould be better to sink them all."
"And what would you do with the people?"
"Let them have their own boats. They'd soon be picked
up."
"Don't be indacent! The mother that bore you would be
ashamed of you, Domenick. But never you fear! If 'tis
your skill as a gunner you're thinking of, I'll give you some
pretty targets yet."
During the night another steamer was sighted, but as she
showed the signals of the North German Lloyd, the
Grampania replied with those of the Cunard line, and allowed
her to pass unmolested as a neutral.
The following day was spent, with the engines dead-slow,
in examining the stores and storing away the ammunition
that had been brought on board from the Rosario. Four
stewards belonging to the former crew were found secreted
in the steerage, and before he let it be known that he had
discovered them O'Grady took them with him, and quietly
set them to work in emptying overboard all the spirits he
could find. He knew that with such a crew as he had there
was no greater danger than that which would come if they
had access to drink. In their presence he had ceased to be
the easy-going jovial commander: he was sharp and exacting,
though it was still his magnetism which controlled them.
Late in the day a Guion steamer, apparently the Alaska,
was reported, bound west, but as soon as she sighted the
Grampania she went about in an extraordinary fashion, as
if alarmed, and was lost in the darkness of the night.
"What does that mean?" said Quinn.
"'Tis plain enough. The Rosario must have spoken her
and warned her, bad luck to her! Once the old ship gets to
Queenstown and tells the story, not another one of them will
venture out. But there's plenty to do in the mean time.
The Gigantic will be along here presently, and to-morrow
we may fall in with the Cistercia."
The latter was the Grampania's sister, and no bigger prize
could be expected.
O'Grady's prediction was verified early the next day.
The Grampania was headed eastward, and proceeding at a
speed of not more than five knots, when a ball of smoke was
discovered floating up over the rim of the western horizon.
It swelled in volume until it made a great brown blot that
seemed to fill all the space between the sea and the sky, and
it rolled nearer and nearer to the Grampania, as if driven by
a hurricane. So copious was it that the ship making it was
almost invisible until she was within five miles of O'Grady's
vessel. Then the two light sparless poles and the two
enormous red funnels, counterparts of those of the
Grampania, showed that she was indeed the peerless sister of
that vessel. It was clear that the relationship was mutually
recognized, for the Cistercia was seen to alter her course to
bring herself as near as possible to her sister ship. As
O'Grady knew, only one inference could be entertained by
those on board her that the Grampania had broken down,
and was returning to Queenstown, with the Bulgaria at-
tempting to assist her. She came up astern rapidly, and
then slowed down until she was close abeam. A string of
bunting, bright as a flock of pigeons in the sun, fluttered up
her halyards. "What is the matter? Do you need assistance?"
"No, but you do," O'Grady said to himself, with a chuckle,
as he ordered the answer: "Both engines disabled; stand by
us; send the captain on board."
A boat from the Cistercia was soon alongside, and the
captain of that ship cautiously pulled himself up the ladder.
The moment he reached the deck he saw at a glance that
something was wrong — something not related to the
engines, whatever their condition might be. Where was his
old friend Gallup? The deck was dirty and disordered, and
no uniformed officers or neat-looking seamen were in sight.
What had become of the passengers? He sprang for the
rail — he is still an active man — and attempted to regain the
ladder, but three or four men pressed upon him and shoved
him down one of the companionways. A cloth was bound
over his mouth and a cord knotted around his wrists.
Hearing the struggle, the men in the boat attempted to
shove off, but they were instantly covered by a dozen
revolvers.
"Come aboard here, every mother's son of you, or you'll
never feel a deck under your ugly feet again!" roared Quinn.
They hauled the boat up to the ladder, obeying with
alacrity, and were driven forward under the cover of the
same revolvers.
The Cistercia was so near that all that happened could be
plainly seen from her bridge through a glass, and though
the chief officer lost his presence of mind for a moment, he
recovered it enough to see that it would be wise to put a
greater distance between his ship and the other, though he
had no thought of abandoning his commander. He started
the engines again, and O'Grady, seeing this, supposed that
it was an attempt to escape. He at once ordered his own
engines "Ahead — full speed!"
No reply came from the engine-room, and he repeated the
order, and looked astern for the froth of the screws. The
ship continued at a standstill, while the Cistercia was rapidly
drawing away.
"We'll lose her! We'll lose her!" he cried, as he
telegraphed for a third time.
An engineer came running up the ladder to the shade-deck
and thence to the bridge. The engines would not
move. What had been a fiction was now a fact; the
Grampania was disabled — how and to what extent had not yet
been discovered. O'Grady looked ruefully after the Cistercia.
"If she knew now she'd be off like a bird," he moaned.
"Ah, but she does not know it, and we'll have her yet," he
said, finding quick consolation after his own fashion.
The seven-inch gun on the port bow was already loaded,
and he gave the order to fire. Quinn's aim was true. The
shot went through one of the starboard boats and cut as
with scissors one of the wire shrouds. The Cistercia took
the hint, slowed down, and then, in answer to the
Grampania's signals, came back to her former position.
The captain was now released, and sent back to his ship
under an armed guard, forty of O'Grady's men having
preceded him and taken possession of her. A brisk fight had
occurred before they were allowed to board her, but another
shot had compelled her surrender.
"Lower your boats, and transfer yourselves to the
Bulgaria as fast as you can."
These were O'Grady's orders to the captive commander.
"What do you mean to do, you villain?" he asked,
helplessly and sullenly.
"Pay an old debt," was the only answer vouchsafed by
O'Grady.
He hurried the transfer, and before it was over the Cistercia
had already begun to sink, the sea pouring into her
through several open valves and ports. He then recalled
his men both from her and the Bulgaria, and returned with
them on board the Grampania.
The Bulgaria, now in possession of only her own crew
and the crew and passengers of the Cistercia, seemed
inclined to linger on the scene, like a creature stunned by
misfortune; but O'Grady, emphasizing the message with
another gun, signalled her to proceed on her course immediately,
as he feared that if she delayed his own disabled
condition would be discovered.
The wind began to howl and threaten a gale, and the sun
went down casting red gleams through banks of purplish-blue
clouds. The Bulgaria, slowly steaming away, became
but a mote in the eye, and the mote itself dissolved; the
last feather in her trail of smoke was brushed away. The
dark hull of the Cistercia was sagging under the flood that
was pouring into her, and those who watched her wondered
that she kept afloat so long. Before the daylight had quite
gone they saw, or imagined they saw, a strange movement
in her, like that of an animal shaking itself, and then, bow
in the air, the noble ship, which less than a year ago had
cost two million dollars, disappeared forever in the engulfing
sea.
The accident to the engines had not been serious, and five
days later the Grampania was hove to in a fog on the Banks
of Newfoundland. She had captured six of the newest and
fastest ships on the ocean, representing a value of fully
twelve hundred thousand pounds, including the Gigantic,
which she had fallen in with on the morning following the
sinking of the Cistercia. But now she had less than fifty
tons of coal left, and her capacity for mischief was nearly
gone. A small steamer, bound from Halifax for Trinidad,
had been taken, and was kept close alongside. She was to
be used as a consort and tender until the moment came when
it would be necessary to abandon the Grampania, which
was then to be scuttled, while the crew were to retreat to
the smaller vessel, and proceed in her to a South or Central
American port, and there disperse.
All of O'Grady's calculations had so far been verified, and
while his confidence in himself had increased, his crew had
learned to regard him with superstitious awe. Whatever
he predicted came to pass in a miraculous way, so that now
when he expressed a belief that before the Grampania was
abandoned they would capture still another White Star ship,
his men looked upon it as being as good as done.
"The Cosmic ought to be here this afternoon," he said.
"The only fear I have is that she may get by us in the
fog."
He went on board the smaller ship — the Bogota — to
superintend some changes that were being made in her, when the
harsh, ear-splitting whistle of a large steamer pierced the
air.
"What did I tell you?" he said, exultantly. "I'm not
infallible, like the Pope, but, take my word for it, that's the
Cosmic."
He had left orders that the sound of any whistle was to
be answered with continuous blasts by the Grampania, to
convey the idea that she was in distress, and to draw the
prey on; and that ship now gave vent to a barbarous
dissonance which reached far over the waters. The answering
blasts were loud and frequent, and rapidly grew nearer and
more powerful.
"She must be close aboard!" O'Grady cried, excitedly.
"Give way there, boys, or it will be too late."
He was attempting to rejoin the Grampania; but before
he was half-way towards her the other ship unburied
herself out of the white silky fog. He stood up in the
stern-sheets and let the tiller-ropes fall from his hands. He looked
for two cream-colored funnels, and saw four; for a black
hull, and saw a white one. He had caught a Tartar. The
new-comer was not the Cosmic, but the cruiser Columbia,
which, not deceived this time, as by the Blake, had fulfilled
her mission.
The Grampania attempted to steam away, but was
brought to by three shots, which followed one another so
peremptorily that the crew saw that resistance was hopeless.
They then attempted to escape in the boats, but,
panic-stricken as they were, they could not lower them before a
boarding party from the cruiser had taken possession.
Meanwhile, however, O'Grady had rowed back to the
Bogota, and putting on all steam, had vanished in the fog. The
Columbia did not follow him, but after securing all the
prisoners in the steerage, she took the Cunarder in tow, and in
three days arrived with her off Fire Island.
Even his intimate friends profess to believe that O'Grady
never reached land, but went down in the Bogota. This
may be so, for that vessel is on the underwriter's books as
"missing"; but there is an officer of the new Brazilian navy
who looks very much like him, and who was promoted not
long ago for an exploit of extraordinary daring. His name
is Castilian, but the brogue in his speech leads the listener
to infer that he was educated abroad. As two and two
make twenty-two as well as four, combinations of that
kind have a degree of uncertainty; but one may draw one's
own inferences from the fact that the wife of this officer was
formerly Miss Maggie Burke, of New York.
