The Stephen Crane Megapack. Stephen Crane
the end of it they went on deck. The captain stood at the stern addressing the bow with opprobrious language. When he perceived the voyagers he began to fling his fists about in the air.
“I’m goin’ to put yeh off!” he yelled. The wanderers stared at each other.
“Hum,” said the tall man.
The freckled man looked at his companion. “He’s going to put us off, you see,” he said, complacently.
The tall man began to walk about and move his shoulders. “I’d like to see you do it,” he said, defiantly.
The captain tugged at a rope. A boat came at his bidding.
“I’d like to see you do it,” the tall man repeated, continually. An imperturbable man in rubber boots climbed down in the boat and seized the oars. The captain motioned downward. His whisker had a triumphant appearance.
The two wanderers looked at the boat. “I guess we’ll have to get in,” murmured the freckled man.
The tall man was standing like a granite column. “I won’t,” said he. “I won’t! I don’t care what you do, but I won’t!”
“Well, but—” expostulated the other. They held a furious debate.
In the meantime the captain was darting about making sinister gestures, but the back of the tall man held him at bay. The crew, much depleted by the departure of the imperturbable man into the boat, looked on from the bow.
“You’re a fool,” the freckled man concluded his argument.
“So?” inquired the tall man, highly exasperated.
“So! Well, if you think you’re so bright, we’ll go in the boat, and then you’ll see.”
He climbed down into the craft and seated himself in an ominous manner at the stern.
“You’ll see,” he said to his companion, as the latter floundered heavily down. “You’ll see!”
The man in rubber boots calmly rowed the boat toward the shore. As they went, the captain leaned over the railing and laughed. The freckled man was seated very victoriously.
“Well, wasn’t this the right thing after all?” he inquired in a pleasant voice. The tall man made no reply.
CHAPTER VI
As they neared the dock something seemed suddenly to occur to the freckled man.
“Great heavens!” he murmured. He stared at the approaching shore.
“My, what a plight, Tommy!” he quavered.
“Do you think so?” spoke up the tall man. “Why, I really thought you liked it.” He laughed in a hard voice. “Lord, what a figure you’ll cut.”
This laugh jarred the freckled man’s soul. He became mad.
“Thunderation, turn the boat around!” he roared. “Turn ’er round, quick! Man alive, we can’t—turn ’er round, d’ye hear!”
The tall man in the stern gazed at his companion with glowing eyes.
“Certainly not,” he said. “We’re going on. You insisted Upon it.” He began to prod his companion with words.
The freckled man stood up and waved his arms.
“Sit down,” said the tall man. “You’ll tip the boat over.”
The other man began to shout.
“Sit down!” said the tall man again.
Words bubbled from the freckled man’s mouth. There was a little torrent of sentences that almost choked him. And he protested passionately with his hands.
But the boat went on to the shadow of the docks. The tall man was intent upon balancing it as it rocked dangerously during his comrade’s oration.
“Sit down,” he continually repeated.
“I won’t,” raged the freckled man. “I won’t do anything.” The boat wobbled with these words.
“Say,” he continued, addressing the oarsman, “just turn this boat round, will you? Where in the thunder are you taking us to, anyhow?”
The oarsman looked at the sky and thought. Finally he spoke. “I’m doin’ what the cap’n sed.”
“Well, what in th’ blazes do I care what the cap’n sed?” demanded the freckled man. He took a violent step. “You just turn this round or—”
The small craft reeled. Over one side water came flashing in. The freckled man cried out in fear, and gave a jump to the other side. The tall man roared orders, and the oarsman made efforts. The boat acted for a moment like an animal on a slackened wire. Then it upset.
“Sit down!” said the tall man, in a final roar as he was plunged into the water. The oarsman dropped his oars to grapple with the gunwale. He went down saying unknown words. The freckled man’s explanation or apology was strangled by the water.
Two or three tugs let off whistles of astonishment, and continued on their paths. A man dozing on a dock aroused and began to caper.
The passengers on a ferry-boat all ran to the near railing. A miraculous person in a small boat was bobbing on the waves near the piers. He sculled hastily toward the scene. It was a swirl of waters in the midst of which the dark bottom of the boat appeared, whale-like.
Two heads suddenly came up.
“839,” said the freckled man, chokingly. “That’s it! 839!”
“What is?” said the tall man.
“That’s the number of that feller on Park Place. I just remembered.”
“You’re the bloomingest—” the tall man said.
“It wasn’t my fault,” interrupted his companion. “If you hadn’t—” He tried to gesticulate, but one hand held to the keel of the boat, and the other was supporting the form of the oarsman. The latter had fought a battle with his immense rubber boots and had been conquered.
The rescuer in the other small boat came fiercely. As his craft glided up, he reached out and grasped the tall man by the collar and dragged him into the boat, interrupting what was, under the circumstances, a very brilliant flow of rhetoric directed at the freckled man. The oarsman of the wrecked craft was taken tenderly over the gunwale and laid in the bottom of the boat. Puffing and blowing, the freckled man climbed in.
“You’ll upset this one before we can get ashore,” the other voyager remarked.
As they turned toward the land they saw that the nearest dock was lined with people. The freckled man gave a little moan.
But the staring eyes of the crowd were fixed on the limp form of the man in rubber boots. A hundred hands reached down to help lift the body up. On the dock some men grabbed it and began to beat it and roll it. A policeman tossed the spectators about. Each individual in the heaving crowd sought to fasten his eyes on the blue-tinted face of the man in the rubber boots. They surged to and fro, while the policeman beat them indiscriminately.
The wanderers came modestly up the dock and gazed shrinkingly at the throng. They stood for a moment, holding their breath to see the first finger of amazement levelled at them.
But the crowd bended and surged in absorbing anxiety to view the man in rubber boots, whose face fascinated them. The sea-wanderers were as though they were not there.
They stood without the jam and whispered hurriedly.
“839,” said the freckled man.
“All right,” said the tall man.
Under the pommeling hands the oarsman showed signs of life. The voyagers watched him make a protesting kick at the leg of the crowd, the while uttering angry groans.