The Argosy, October 1906 — page 125: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

ache to make an additional profit out -__ of the men’s necessities, had doubled her prices ! | That alone would ‘have settled the fate of the Shanadoah so far as the crew was. concerned. But a deeper tragedy - was at. hand. We fad in my watch a little fellow named Miggs—a Cockney—who was subject to epileptic fits. By common “consent we always took especial care of him aloft; even Hogan respected his in- = firmity, and never ordered him into the = rigging alone unless he was securely = lashed. : Upon the afternoon following the < episode of the tobacco. the Skipper was on deck, the mate being below. Miggs - was” at work in the mizzen rigging, se- cured by a life-line around his middle. Suddenly. the captain ordered him_ = aloft to stow the mizzen-royal gasket = which had worked adrift. -Miggs sent a -_« protesting glance at the deck, old Milli- gan storming away at him ‘for this slow- | ness, and then he started aloft. = Both watches were on deck, it being the - second dog-watch, some stumping about to kee ‘warm, others at work on various trifling jobs. We all heard the captain’s order, and there were not a few growls == of disgust at his drunken cruelty. es Miggs teached the mizzen- ‘royal yard safely, and was in the act of passing the = 468: gasket, when he was seen to twist and quiver, his body.bent and tautened in an arc, and losing his hold he fell backward and shot from that dizzy height into the sea! There was an instant cry of “Man -. overboard!” from a dozen throats, and © ere he touched the water twenty pairs of arms seized the braces, expecting an order to heave-to, while as many more attacked the gripes and lashings of the quarter-boat, when there tame the ar- resting order from the skipper: “Keep all fast with that boat, I tell } * } ” ye: The ship was doing about five or six ene plunging sullenly through a head a RE 'N o order came to check our head- ae -and our cold-bleoded commander _ stood calmly looking aft into the dusk, ___ where poor Miggs had gone to his death. coe “Hogan, doubtless Beis our cries, ‘ more > likely ‘thinking i it od Susines" rashed on deck; to him the ‘capt sald = = eight o ‘clock that night, and glad. enough — _at sae by the calling of the star- something ina low tone, and then went — below as unconcernedly as though the ; ship’s cat had gone overboard. seat = = There was a chorus of hoarse and = angry yells from the crew when it became eS clear that no effort was to be made toe save our shipmate. =a “They’re a pair o’ bloody ida E that’s wot!” shouted Harris, louder than * the rest. <> —S “What’s that mutinous hound say- = in’?” yelled Hogan, coming to the break _ of the poop, where he could look down on the main deck. “If any of you con- — demned and decayed scowbankers has — / é As Ly pe * Kew » | anything to say about who’s running this _ = ship, let him come up here an’ T’ll give eo him his answer!” —— So saying, he drew his revolver, ds oe we heard it oe as the hammer flew toe = full cock. - = . eee & We were a = cosandly lot, you 11 say, yet = ee such is the sense and the. weight of x oy authority at sea that very few crews, = taken thus by surprise, would have done eS any more than we did—disperse growling a about the darkening deck. aoe What actually took place between S eight o’clock and midnight I knew only = == from hearsay, for I was confined to my bunk with a severe neuralgia. One side < of my face was swollen to the size of a Ex Dutch cheese, and, when I went aft to. 4 ask for some liniment, Hogan was con- ~*~ — siderate enough to growl out that Td = better turn in until morning, which you may be sure I was very glad to do. ta; As a matter of fact, my position on — © board. had become a peculiar one... The = crew had long since found out my rating se and my history, and noticed that al- though I was one of them, so far as shar-_ ae ing their tasks and their wretched food went, I was about the only man aboard, —s_— saving the carpenter and the bos’n, “who oe had not been manhandled by Hogan. = ayes The men knew that I was a navigator, = but, because I had resolutely refused to — & i join in their mutinous talk, they had - come to leave me out of their counsels. Well, the port watch went on deck at I was to crouch down in my damp and scanty blankets and endeavor to seek ob- livion from pain in sleep. I was roused — Sie === _~_Comichooks.com