Part 51

"What's it for?" he mimics. "What d'y' think it's for?"

I shake my head. "I could never guess."

"Well, you will soon. You know me?"

"I do. And you know me?"

"I know you, and I'll take no chances with you. I'm going to heave you a line and take you in tow."

"I don't remember flying any signals for a tow."

"No? Well, I think you'd be better off for a tow. Take my line."

"We don't want your line."

"Take my line or I'll blow a few holes in you, and while you're on your way to the bottom of the straits--all hands of you--I'll ram you to make sure."

"You're foolish to sink us," I says, "till you take off the ambergris and the sealskins."

He began to get mad. "Take my line or take a shell from this gun. Which is it?" he yells.

His gun was trained on our midship topsides. I couldn't see where he was going to sink us, leastwise not with one shot, so, "Come aboard with your shell!" I called out, and he did. I didn't look to see what damage the shell did in passing, but it went clear through our pine topsides one side and out the other.

I'd already passed the word to my mate, and wh-r-oo! went the four-and-a-half-foot bomb-lance from the inside of one of our make-believe seven-inch rifles. The lance tore through just above the water-line of Red Dick's steamer. The bomb exploded inside her hull. Through the hold the sea rushed, and from her deck below came whoops of surprise.

I rolled the little fat Svend Foyn around. She near capsized in turning, especially as Red Dick let me have two more from his needle-gun while we were coming around. One of them burst inside, but didn't kill anybody. Around came the Svend Foyn.

"Her water-line!" I yelled, and we let her have it. And again we gave it to her. They both went home.

Red Dick quit laughing. He ran down from the bridge and out of sight below. Pretty soon, through her sides, as we hear him and his gang yelling, came the ends of blankets and mattresses, to keep the sea out of the holes we'd made.

And while they are at that we give them another. And that settled it. Five minutes before, I had an idea we might have to go to the bottom--s-sst! like that. And now Red Dick and his cargo steamer were belting through the tide rips toward the Terra del Fuego shore, to find a bay, I suppose, and a bit of a beach to haul up and patch things. And I couldn't help thinking as he went that he'd lost a desperate reputation about as easy as any ever I heard of; but I might as well also say now that I'd been shipmates with Red Dick, and I always did believe he was a good deal of a bluff. But my crew didn't think that. There was great rejoicing among them, and I let them rejoice so long as they didn't stop setting things to rights.

We were shook up some--our bridge loosened up, our wireless hoops hanging droopy, our two fake smoke-stacks lying over on their sides, and the for'ard turret with some dents in it; but bow first, and in peace and quiet, we steamed on. And we were still steaming in peace and quiet when we made Punta Arenas.

And, steaming in, I thought I might as well do it in style. Here we were, a victorious battle-ship entering a foreign port, and so I hoisted our international code--spelling it out that we were the Cape Horn of the Terra del Fuegan navy, and asking permission to anchor. The captain of the American battle-ship was standing on his bridge as we steamed down the line, with a man in our chains heaving the lead, my mate on the fore-bridge and myself on the after-bridge, a quartermaster to the wheel, and the second mate spying, busy as could be, through a long glass; and not alone the captain, but the nine hundred and odd officers and men of the American battle-ship roared in review of us. The other ships in port didn't know what to make of it no way.

We came around and dropped our young anchor, splash! and saluted the port--twenty-one guns from our bomb-lance things.

Our lieutenant of the hunting party seemed to be officer of the deck on the real battle-ship. "How'd you come out?" he hails.

"We met the enemy and their loot is ours," I answers.

"Captain Fenton presents his compliments and would like to have you come aboard," he hails.

And I went aboard, sitting in the stern-sheets of my second boat, with the red, green, and purple flag trailing astern and eight men to the oars. And they gave me two bosun's pipes with four side-boys and two long ruffles from the drums as I came over the side, and in the captain's cabin I told him what the officers of the hunting party couldn't tell him already. And he thought it the best story he'd heard in a long time.

I thought it was a pretty good story myself, and told it again to Mr. Amundsen on the same long pier where I had first met him with Hilda, and he said the blood of the old vikings must be in my veins, and uncorked four solid hours of the old sagas, finishing up in the big front room with fiat bread and goats' cheese and dried ptarmigan chips and Trondhjem beer.

By and by I got a chance to tell it to Hilda--that and a little more while I was telling it. The band, a fine band, too, was playing their Sunday-night concert out in the plaza. I remember how the music made pictures in my brain while I talked, though I never could remember what they played.

However, that's no matter. Hilda says I told the story right that night. And I've told it many a time since--to her and the children when I'm home from sea. They are good children, who believe everything that is told them--even the sagas of their grandfather.

THE LAST PASSENGER