People's Pilot, Volume 6, Number 32, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 January 1897 — A SEA CHANCE. [ARTICLE]

A SEA CHANCE.

By MORGAN ROBERTSON.

A Tale Told By a Mate and a Cook.

•I believe you are the cook of] tills boat, in a sad condition of n.ind,” said the Cuban dryly, wore interested now in the approaching cutter, “Cook! I'm mate, if I’m anything,” spluttered Dorsey, the sailor in him aroused by the affront. Yet the terror in his eyes might have indicated his doubt that he was anything. The vessel outside had stopped _her-engines at the mouth of the inlet, and now sent another and b ‘tier aimed shot across the “Avon’s” stern. It aroused Dorsey to fury. “That’s your game is it?” he growled, hoarsely, “All right. ‘Get under way,’ you say.” He sprang to the deck, saw that the anchors were on the rail; then, to satisfy misgivings thirty years old, ran aft and looked over the stern at the rudder. It was there, intact, and he hurried to the engine- roo m hatch. “Down there, Chief?” he called. “Who’s below?” There was no answer. He reached the fire-room at a bound, and , meemerging, the-wooly head of the firemau, who had heard the gun and wanted to know. “What steam have you got?” demanded Dorsey, who recognized his craft, though not knowing him. “Wha' dat yo’ business, Jack Shiv m? Yo’ g’ back t’ yo’ pels a-f p j:.-. ■' (loan yo’cun; oulti. ' (fi-ycre fire-hole. Disfir-j V ' yo'. Yo’ git buwned, J- •• ■ Y"! yah, yah-ya. Who tiro < ■ ■ ; >■ . cookie?” “What steam you got?”— tlie words seemed to explode from M. throat—“answer me, you b -'k imp, or I’ll jam you into to. furnace. How many ] iinis?” ■Wha'dat?”

lie fireman got no farther. Dorsey's fingers gripped his throat, and in a second he was s. awled backward over the h . ch combing. Squeezing hard for a moment, the infuriated questioner again demanded: “What steam you got?” “Fifty pounds. Jack,” gurgled ; the negro; “le ( go; wha’ yo’| Waul?” • Get down there! Bring it up to sixty and keep itso. I’m going t< si-art the engine. Down with y< !, quick! Don’t you leave that fi t' hold till I tell you.” Pile frightened fireman ties''Ted, and Dorsey examined the e= line. •Same scrap-heap,” he rrmitered. “Hasn’t changed like me and the boat, and the heavens and earth." He ran forward again. In ti;e after end of the pilot house he found a chest, which he kicked open, scattering the contents—signal Hags—pn the floor. He picked out three, and called the Cuban. “Who are you, anyhow?” he asked. “ Can you run the engine?” “No.” “Can you steer?” “I cannot.” “Then I must do both. Run these three flags up to the truck in the order I name them—K, G, PUudei stand? K on top. They’re marked. Quick, now.” “Why,” demanded the other, “what do these flags say?” “They say our engine’s broken down, if you must know,” yelled Dorsey. “I want to stop his fire, and draw him into the in let; then dash by him. It's our only chatice. D’you want to end your days in a Yankee prison? Bqar a h and, or you will—that is, unless you want to swim.” The Ciban glanced at three dorse' tins alongside low rds wijicii D -rsey pointed, and look the I’ajs He had watchG.l the f rid am <tl the hatch wi h as muci! .musement as would » mim ;J'' ' ill} his apprehension of aroy i Bug this masterful, nie 'iod kill ■) fin a tic, w h o h ad g i ven s -c ■ h forw fn instrpciion to the' tire , mail. mid who now seemed. to haw the International Signal Cocotiii his head, was the same >m.|ing imbecile who could not scull a boat, Suspicions of Spanish espionage disturbed him. Yet, the other’s action might in-! dieate a desire to escape; and so, re zoning that whatever the Hags ini'hi say, his position would oe made no woj-.se, he hoisted them. While Dorsey, after giving a tentative turn or two to the engine, watched the effect ou the cutter.

The ruse succeeded. The ■ mendacious message, read ■ aboard the government craft, caused her to reserve her fire and i enter the inlet. Then Dorsey’ threw the throttle wide open. 1 and with a qassing ddjurgatioi. i to the victim tn the tire room ’ ran to the wheel. “Come up here and give me a hand,” he called; but the Cuban did not answer. He had just seen a dark figure emerge from the fire-hold, take a hurried look around, and speed to the stern, where the boat, nearly, on end now as the steamer gathered way. was fastened by its painter. Acting on a sudden resolution, lie followed, choosing to join the party ashore with the aid of the tireman —who could scull — rather than remain with a man who, if not a maniac, was a most aggressive and unpleasent companion—.possibly a Spanish spy. He slipped down the rope after the negro, and cut the boat clear. Dorsey saw them, shook his fist, and steered for the inlet. The wind had drifted the ‘.‘Avon” close to the opening; so now, with the other vessel just entering, they were not a quarter of a mile apart, and a minute later were within hailing distance. “Where are yon going?” bawled a brass buttoned officer from the cutter's bridge. “Sion your engine or I’ll sink you!” Dorsey streched his head and half of his body through* the pilot hou-e window, and shouted in reply: “Oar engine’s r unning away with ns—lever’s broken. We ll pull our tires outside.” TimoTcer doubled, tmt hesitateci, and the “Avon” sit >t by at a fifteen-knot rate. Dorsey edged up into the cutter’s wake, and by keeping her masts in line, avoided, for awhile, her tire; for she was a revenue cutter, built to pursue, not to flee; hencetopne of her be trained over the stern. Was ever dignified government craft caught in a more undignified position? She could not safely back out of the inlet, and by the time she had steamed in, turned around, and started seaward, the “Avon” was a mile and a half away, with an increased blackness to her line of belching smoke which indicated anything but an intention to “pull tires.” Dorsey, lashing the wheel, had gone and added fuel, tried the water and talked (after the fashion of the engine-room) to the oscililating cylinder, wagging away like the stump-tail of an overpleased dog. He now returned to the wheel. Sholal'ter shot from the cutter’s long-range guns hummed around the “Avon” but none of them struck. Though her armament was comparative’y modern, her engine was old—older than the “Avon’s,” and inferior by two knot’s speed per hour. Dorsey steered due east, made periodical trips to the boat’s vitals, and in* three hours whooped in triumph as he saw the pursuer head slowly around and K start back. An hour later he drew his fires, stopped the engine, and cooked his breakfast, hardly yet recovered from his excitement sufficiently to realize to the full his isolation—not of space, but of time. He was still of the past; just escaped from peril a. generation gone. He finished his meal and wanted a smoke. Going to his old room, lie found strange clothing, strange alterations of the j fit iings, but no pipe “Queer” he : muttered. “G >t some one in my I place. I suppose,” His tone was' aggrieved. “Might ha’ waited I more’:; I hree d.y ■>. Wonderho w • long, though, I’ve been silJv.fl iNfit Hug—my head’s sore ye’.J | Yet, I've grown a beard. W m fder ■■ I. at hit me. Til ge; ■ down fori ard. ”

t In the forecastle be found om: ' and a syauge ortind of tobacco,, ■■'v'.iicii lie CO’.; nscatod. Return;;! -■ jtothe deexue smoked and r/- ’ fleeted. But in a. minute he nut | the pipe down nauseated. Jack j Shi ven .had not been a smoker. : i ” What’ll I do?” he mused. “Go ■ back to the coast and pick up t he i crew—that wasn’t the crew I The boat's changed hands. Has she been seized? Maybe; and I was too dead to move, What ails the boat? She looks as though she'd been thorugh seven hells. He went to the rail. Old paint! old woodwork! old boat! Where’s she been to? Wire-rigged, too!

I’ll see the articles.*l’ll see if I belong here.” The captains’ room was locked. In no condition of mind to care for nautical etiquette, he raised his foot, burst in the door and entered. A large mirror on thp bulk head reflected his image, and he stood transfixed by the strange, staring, bearded sac which was not his own. He raised his hand; the image did the same. He inclined his head" to the right and the left, and was accompanied. “It’s me,” “and it isn’t nte!” Approaching the glass, he examined closely the spectre confront ing him. There was not a trace of resemblance between the old and the new John Dorsey, unless it was the color of the eyes. Hair, features, even the shape of the nose and thickness of the lips, were changed. The shoulders, too, were more sloping, as though dragged down by weights. John Dorsey had pulled ropes, downward;' Jack Shi ven had wheeled barrows.

He sank down on a chest in helpless fright, while perspiration oozed from his forehead. A discolored newspaper lay folded in the berth, which he seized and examined. It was dated January 1, 1895. He threw it down. “Can’t be,” lie said, with a doubting, though piteous, half smile. ' “Seventy-five, eightyfive, ninety-five—thirty years. Nonsense. Where’s the logbook?” He found it in the male’s room; its last departurd dated October 3, 1895, With brain on tire, he re turned to the captain’s room, and attacked the- boat’s - library, tearing books from their places, examining the publishers’ im prints, and throwing them down. They bore bates ranging through* the years following the war.. He burst the captain's desk apart, and rummaged for the ai ticks. His name was not there. Tin last entered was “Jack Shiver!, cook;.” and the articles also were

dated thirty years into the future. He crept on deck. He, wauled "air. Not a breath of air ruffled the glassy smoothness of the ground swell which, sent by some distant gale, had thrown the “Avon” into its trough and was rolling her gently as she drifted north with the Gulf Stream. The sun was shining from a cloudflecked sky, and in the air were all the mild warmth and softness of the Florida winter. But to this human soul, torn from its past, plunged alone and unguided far into the unknown, there was something unreal and unearthly in the aspect of the sea and sky. There was insufferable heat and dryness to the air he breathed, and a new. metallic ring to the tinkling swash of the water as the ho-at rolled; and this sound, with the hissing of steam from the boiler, instead of relieving, seemed but to accentuate the intense silence of the ocean—which bore him down and crushed him. “Who am I?” he thought, rather than uttered. “I’m not John Dorsey. I'm'some one else. Who?”

He backed up against the side of the forward house. Off to the westward was a speck—the revenue cutter. It was a tangible reality, and his dazed faculties seized it. He traced back, painfub ly, the events of the morning. “She chased me out here,” he whispered, “Who was that Dago? He knew me. Who was the nigger, and the crowd on the beach? They were not the crew —l’m not the mate.” He walked aft. “Here I stood this morning—last night—when I was struck; and then—all at once—it was daylight, and I was here.” He moved a few steps. “z\nd.nothing is the same.” He noticed the broken wire-rope on the deck. “What parted the lift 9 It seems —yes —it must be—that is what hit me. I remember now; I saw ji t move cm deck. It m ist have knockcd*me senseless, ami meanwhiie tue i> >'. h.i, h.. trouble. But they rnVen c m ’ed the lift, and it. was a hmm- I'i t, too - '■ -~O 1 l’ m not —l’m n d John . s>r.- -y/.l’m ; somebmiy mse. who .;: : can’; make it, cut. Who n I?” He jclutm to ilm rail a d . ■ . iiU ied ; loudlv and hoarsely, in agony : iot terror, tl’tien he ■ ..a i ..-ward, i thdm-afl, and forwar I ag im. He ' ; burst into the cap'.sin’s room, ■ examined again l/is f.tce in' the glass—which he loathed and fled from it. On the pilot-house waA the' boat s name, wh’ch he iliad not noticed in the articles. He saw it now for the first time. He sprang to the bow, and looked over. There, in block copper letters, where once had been the word “Petrel” he saw the boat’s later namq. Aft on the stern he

read it again—“ Avon, of New York.” He seated himself on a hatch, steadier in mind now for the removal of tfae“Petrel” from the problem. As he sat there he noticed an anchor worked in inda-ink <m the back of his nand —the soft, white hand of Jack Shiven. the cook. He looked at ■ it in am izement; then pulled up his rii. nt siee;'e. There, close to his elbow was a wreath, and within it the initials “J.D.” He tore open his shirt, and on his breast found a mole. He sprange to ins feet, raised his clenched fisl, brought it down, and said, calmly and decisively: “I am John Dorsey. And this boat—” he scanned the fabric from trucks to curving deck with the eye of a sailor who loves his craft, —“has once been the •Petrel. ‘ ” As the noon houi 1 approached lie thought of an observation. “I know the latitude,” he mused “I can subtract that from the zenth. distance and get the declination, and that will give me the month and day in the almanac.. But what’s the use? I’ll know tomorrow, when I see the owners. The sun’s well south of the line; it's the fall of the year. It was last January when my light went out.”

He threw on coal, started the engine, and shaped a course for the providence channel. All. that day and the following night he gravitated from the wheel to the' boiler and engine, and next morning, as the languid islanders were wakeing to their indolent existence, he steered into the west entrance of Nassau harbor. On the highest point of the low shore was a figure that waved to him Something red. He did not see it. Inside the harbor, he stooped the engine, while he puzzled over the mechanism of a patent windlass, which was new to him.. Mastering this, he went on at half speed. Tim figure had left the rocks, and, still waving the' .red cloth, was ' hastening t(>warci the -landing. Close as he dare go, he again shut off steam, pried the small anchor off the rail, dropped it, and after paying out.a few fathoms, banked the tires, ahd hailed a shore boat. As he landed, an old woman in a red shawl was waiting. She flung herself upon him wish a glad cry, and after a moment he knew her for his mother. But his greeting was rather a cold one, for by his chronology it was only a week since he kissed her good-by. Later, when questioned, he said: “I didn’t knowmother, at first; she had grown so old.” She, on her part de dared with streaming eyes: • “1 recognized Johnny the minute I saw him. And I always knew he’d come back in the,old ‘Petrel.’ ”

Dorsey did not go to seek the owners of the “Petrel.’ ” Men who professed to be friends of his, but who looked curiously old and weatherbeaten, talked to him in such a way that everyihing grew more uncertain than ever. Then, one day, he climbed over the “Avon’s rail, a man emerged from the cabin, and with a stern countenance, though with a secret twinkle in the eye, advanced and collared him, “So-ho, my man.” said he; “never been to sea, hey? Yet you can navjgate. Can’t scull a boat ashore, but can run an engine, and steal a big steamer?” He gave Dorsey a gentle shake. The next moment he was seated on'the deck a dozen feet away, rubbing a smarting spot on his chest about as large as Dorsey’s list —which fist, as unused to such collisions as Dorsey was to ' being shaken, was also being j rubbed. In his incompletecorres ' pondence with his environment, I he was still the mate of the “Petrel.” dealing with an insoV| leht. member of the crew; for time had touched lightly'the captain of the “Avim.’V and Dorsey recognized him as his old shipmate. “The nigger was right mut tered the carp kun, as he aros •; “mad as an I :i duke on a later hili.”’ he star 1 1 i for the raipaud j had nearly scrambled over who,?. Dorsey seized, dragged him in board, and -.ted him, not toe gently, on it hatch', “hl'ow.thfc-.n you sit there and'answer a few questions,” said Dorsey with » h, 5 hand on th; captain’s -collar. * They tell m< it’s a long time since yon and 1 were together. What do you know? What became of me after that shot from ihe Yankee?” “Why, I don’t really know. Jack,” said the captain, resolved to humor his captor, whose ma niacal strehth prevented an escape; but his neck was nearlydislocated by the sudden shake he received as Dorsey thundered: “Don’t call me Jack! Answer me!”

‘■l Don’t know; I s’pose you came here. You ran off with my boat; but that’s all right; good thing you did; don’t choke me, don't!” . Dorsey had shifted bis fingers. “No nonsense. Wheel'd 1 no after we'were taken?” "We weren’t taken. Don’t you remember? You started the machine, and fooled the cutter, and got away. I s'pose you kepi, right on and brought up here.” Dorsey released him. "But that was in this boat. Do you belong in her?” "I’m her captain and owner; and it seems I’m getting queer treatment from my cook. You’ve looted my cabin.” The captain grew easier. There was no gleam of insanity in the earnest eyes that were fixed upon him "Was I the cook? What was my name? Wnere’d I come from?” asked Dorsey eagerly. "You shipped in New York as Jack Shiwjn; that’s ail I know. You're uota bewildering success as a cook, but I’ll admit you were a well behaved man until late'y. Vhe fireman swears you. re crazy.” The grinning captain said nothing of his own doubts on this point. "Jack Saiven,” repeated Dorsey; ".yes, that’s what he called me. But, Captain, I meant the ‘Petrel I '-—when she was taken it, was last wgek to me—but they tell me it was thirty years back —when you were’fore the mast and I was mate; what happened? Where’d I go?” "Wiia-at?” exclaimed the cap tain, springing up; "you Mr. Dorsey? Not much! I’d know him with wings on.” "I toil you I am,” said Dorsey ve heme it t ly. “My mot he rk do vZ-, me."

"She dues? Then Til lake It on faith. .But,” he seiz.-l Dorsey.- hand, and ’began to sim-Kc it vigorously Dorsey I ■ii' . ■ ha known it—i. ini -lit ha’ Kqwii it, if I’d^tliotight. man bn earth but John Dorsey would have got by that cniter. Why, it was a miracle, that’s what it was. lakes blomrauin to develope a man. I s’pose old times brought you round. Yes, don’t you know? You was slur - ned and couldn’t remember. And you’ve seen your mother. I’d give this boat to have been at that meeting. Thirty long years, winter and summer, she’s sat ou those rocks waiting for you Mr. Dorsey and now you've come!” The captain was winking hard. "G?me below, Mr. Dorsey, there’s only’ one thing that fits this occasion. If you'd smashed more furniture, you’d ha’ found it. It was bottled the year you went under. THE END.