THE TROUBLE ON BOARD ATHOL.

By MOE&AE EOBERTSON.

[Copyright, 1599, by Morgan Robertson.]

Squat, swarthy and malignant, he paced the quarter deck in the middle watch, his one eye shooting fiery glances at the opaque blackness to windward at the tangle of straining cordage and bulging canvas aloft, at the group of Bailors forward, huddled under the shel tering weather rail, and at the helms man, braced against' the wheel and im movable. He paused in his walk.

"Ease her when she pitches," he bel lowed. And the helmsman answered and assumed life.

He resumed his walk and commnn ings, his mind going back to the fight in the slaver's hold ten years ago. Again he fought that terrible duel with sheath knives. He thrust, parried, dodged, advanced and retreated, watch ing the steely blue of his enemy's eye, feeling again the exhilaration of boiling blood, the initial tingling of the hair roots, heard again the shouts, oaths and encouragements of his lawless shipmates and once more buried his knife in Bill ings' shoulder and received the cut on his cheek fn return. Again he succeed ed, and the knife was transferred from the wounded right hand to the left. He had him mow. He rushed, and Billings slipped in his own blood. On to the prostrate form he pounced; one stroke would finish him. Billings had dropped his knife, and he raised his own, but it came down slanting. The stroke was futile. The wounded arm had encircled his neok. His cheek was pressing the warm blood on his enemy's shirt, and he felt it now —the insertion of the thumb, the smarting pain and blinding, burning slaeet of fire that marked the going out of his left eye forever. And the strange weakness which overcame him and enabled Billings to throw him to hia feet and follow and plant that pile driving fist blow that sent him so near to eternity. And all over a sick blackbird, too, that Billings wanted to nurse. Billings might have killed him. It was hia right. Yet—but he had gouged, and no man who is a man will do that. He had said he would even up, and he would. This ship in which he was chief mate would finish the voyage one man short.

It was in the zenith period of Ameri can shipping, in the days of short miz zenmasts, single topsails and square sterns and squarer stern windows, when the American sailor was America born, bis proudest title able seaman, yet, feel ing within him the potentiality of quarter deck duty, quick to resent ill treatment, to conspire and even mutiny. Officers carried arms in those days, crews were trained to the use of car ronades, pirates watched for and slave trading considered as a slight lapse from the conventional —a little out of date and style.

Of such description was the Athol and her crew, outward bound from New York on a summer voyage to Liv erpool, with Captain Smith command ing, George Earp chief mate and one John Billings in her forecastle.

The captain appeared and joined the brooding first officer.

"Well, Mr. Earp, what do you think of the crew?" he asked. "Strikes me they're a pretty good lot. Don't you think so?"

"No, captain, I can't see it. They're the worst gang of soldiers, farmers and beach combers I ever saw together. I'm going to work them up. They need it."

The captain laughed. "There's one man who don't," he said. "Billings, the big redheaded fellow in your watch. I heard of him ashore; came home mate ■with old Johnson in the Trade Wind. Been mate in that employ five years now. Would have gone out in com mand this time, only he had a bad row with old Johnnie, who got the owners down on him. My brother used to sail with him in the slave trade. Billings has an ungovernable temper. You'll have to look out for that. How the slave trade counts against a man nowadays) Call me if it freshens."

The mate was alone again. His acci dental and unnecessary proposition to ■work up the men, coupled with the mention of Billings' hasty temper, gave form to his speculations. Billings knew his place and work too well to ever put himself in the way of punishment, but, worked up with the rest, he would probably join them in rebellion. Then, as one of a mutinous crew, he could fee disposed of. He would, make sure of that.

Next day the working up began. All hands were kept on deck in the after noon. Unnecessary repetition of orderSv oaths, epithets and insults followed the crew as they hurried around the deok or worked in the rigging. Man after iiaan was sent from the wheel tißrtil Billings took the helm, when even the critical mind of the mate could find no fault with the steering. No matter how suddenly he appeared at the binnacle, he only found the ship on her course exactly. And Billings, though always respectful, did not hesitate to occasion ally fix the calm, open blue eyes on the Scowling visage of the mate in an ex pressionless stare, not too prolonged, yet enough to crowd the evil heart into the throat and stifle the words of abuse he longed to utter. There had been no further recognition between the two.

: At the end of a week the exasperated men were ripe for mutiny and murder, which Billings' influence alone prevent ed. One night as they hauled and pant ed* like overladen horses on the fore brace, and the mate stood amidships, pouring forth volleys of invective and malediction, a marlin spike whizzed past his ear from the darkness near the fore rigging and buried itself an inch deep in the woodwork of the cabin. He fired his pistol forward, but struck no one. It was not Billings who had thrown it, as he had hoped on the mo ment. Billings was perched on the rail looking forward. But Billings was the one man there who had seen the missile jfn, and in the forecastle discussion

which followed took a position against such methods, losing thereby his ascend ency «ver his mates and only regaining it by knocking down the marline spike thrower and two other opponents. '

"If the time comes," he said, "when we will be justified in the courts, you'll find me ready to put the after guard in irons and take the ship home. Mean while I've no desire to hang or go to prison."

But Billings himself was not infalli ble. Under the outward semblance of calm was the hot resentment of a "self respecting man at the insults, often now, leveled at him directly. As the captain had testified, his failures in life had all been due to hasty action, and for the sake of the little wife and babies at home he had begun again at the bot tom, resolved to suffer and submit un til he could rise above the need of it. The mate's persistent persecution slow ly undermined this resolution, and one i night he gave way. Sitting astride the extreme end of the main topsail yard, passing and heaving out the weather reef earing while his fellows on the footrope lifted the sail out to him, he listened with bursting heart to the copious flow of impersonal abuse which the strident voice of the mate carried up to them. And when his name was called, coupled with a foul epithet, the darkness of the night turned red. All details of spar, rigging and deck and the forms of his shipmates were swallowed in the crim son background. He saw nothing but the form and uplifted face of the mate nearly beneath him. The heaver his hand swung above his head arid, whirling downward, struck the deck at the mate's feet and bounded high in air over the lee rail. Then the vicious bark of a pistol was heard, and a dim gray cloud of smoke followed the heaver to leeward. Shot from a yardarm! How many times has this happened in the early days of the century I Billings' rolled backward and with limbs extended, straight and stiff turned

The terrorized first officer, with a last agonized shriek, sprang overboard. slowly over as he fell and disappeared in the water feet first close to the side of the ship—close enough to be saved by a rope had he appeared and one been thrown.

Putting his smoking pistol in his pocket, Mr. Earp cut short the chuckle in his throat to roar out, "Reef that sail; finish that job, you lubbers.'' As they were anything but lubbers, they finished it. Of what need to describe the mutiny which followed. A captain, two mates and a steward, armed with shotguns and helped by a carpenter with a formidable broadax, can, as a rule, quell any mutinous uprising of unarmed sailors that may occur. This is what happened, and with three wounded men in the forecastle disci pline was restored. But a stormy dis cussion took place in the cabin between; Captain Smith and the first officer, fragments of which reached the ears of. the man at the wheel, and the working up ceased.

About 10 o'clock on a calm, sultry evening about a week after the first officer and the steward descended with a lantern to discover the whereabouts of certain cabin stores which the for mer had stowed in port."* 1""""

"I put them here," said the mate; "close up to the cabin trunk. You must have broken them out.''

"No. You know I've given you pilot bread so far at the table, and it's only today that the captain asked for soda biscuits. I haven't seen them, though I knew we had them."

I'Let's look along the wing forward.''

The mate went ahead with the lan tern. At the extreme forward corner of the half deck his under jaw dropped, his hair stiffened and the lantern fell from his nerveless fingers and went out. For, as the circle of light illumined the bulkhead, a tall gray figure had arisen to full height, the paleface surmounted by a shaggy crop of red hair, the fore head crossed by a long, red mark—the figure and face of the murdered Bill ings.

With a squawk of terror the steward fled, and the mate followed. Up thf ladder they bounded, the steward turn ing aft, the mate forward. The lattei looked back The pale, scarred face wai just appearing above the hatch. Pos sessed by blind, unreasoning fear, h« bounded down to the main deck anc? looked again. The tall figure was com ing, giantlike in the darkness, noiseless and gray. With a gasping gurgle that only by effort he raised to a scream, h< ran on. The crew saw and scattered tc the other side of the deck. Forwarc around the fore hatch went the mat< and the silent gray pursuer. Aft on the other side, dispersing the crew again; up the steps ta the poop, around the

cabin, the mate uttering hoarse, jerky ' screams and the terrible thing keeping up the steady, noiseless pursuit just a fathom behind. The captain, aroused by the steward, appeared, only to shrink back out of the way as the pair passed the cabin door. Forward they went again. The mate, evidently growing weaker, stumbled, fell, arose and went on, the figure pausing, only to resume the pursuit. Forward, aft, forward again, the mate falling at intervals, the gray Nemesis always waiting, always main taining an even six feet behind, the frightful race went on until the terror ized first officer mounted the forecastle fleck and with a last agonizing shriek sprang overboard, the shriek ringing in the ears of the others until the water cut it short. The gray apparition fol lowed. Neither was seen again. There was a dearth of soda biscuits on the cabin table until the ship was docked at Liverpool. Not a man aboard would enter the half deck, night or day. As Captain Smith came down the edge of the quay late one night he saw one of the Athol's stern windows open. This was strange. It should be shut. A white face appeared in it, then a gray form which slowly and with great effort climbed down the rudder pend ants, hooked up to the transom and slipped into the water. "That's our ghost," muttered the captain, "but ghosts don't need to climb or swim. It's Billings." He ran closer. The ghost was in trouble. "That you, Billings? Come in. I'll help you out." "Help! I'm drowning," gurgled the swimmer. Captain Smith hurriedly re moved the gangway ladder and, drop ping it over, assisted the exhausted man to safety. It was Billings in gray underclothes and stockings. "Now, Billings," said he to the pros trate man, "by all reason and logic you should be half way to the bottom, a thousand miles out, with a bullet through your head. How is it that you are climbing out of my stern windows tonight?" "Because I went in them, oaptain. The mate's bullet glanced, but it knocked me off the yard, and I went under the bottom. When I came up, I was under the quarter and hung on to the rudder. Then I climbed the rudder pendants, found a window loose enough to open and got in. I was stronger then. Bisouits and tank water weaken a man. I've been in the half deck since." "Except when you played ghost. So that's where our biscuits went." "I didn't mean to drown the mate, captain. I thought the jig was up when he found me, and I wanted one good I knook down before I went in irons; I then I saw how scared he was and kept it up, but I never saw him after he struck the water or I would have help ed him. I knew he couldn't swim; we've been shipmates before. Then I caught the rudder again and climbed in."

"Billings, .my brother is in port, and I've just left him. He told me about the trouble you had with Earp some time ago. Come aboard and get some thing to eat."

John Billings went home chief mate of the Athol.

Old Time Warships.

Napoleon designed a floating fortress in 1789, 1,500 feet long—a flat ship with three turrets, much like the monitor— with which he desired to invade Eng land. In 1610 England built her first line of battle ship, the Royal Prince, which was an improvement over every thing before attempted. It was said "she was doubly built," and "the good liest ship that was builded in Eng land." The first frigate was built also in England, of 32 guns, "and was bo light and swift of sailing that in a short time she had, ere the Dutch war was ended, taken as much money from privateers as would have laden her." Our Constitution was of the same class, of 44 guns, built in Boston in 11797 and coppered by* Paul Revere, the artist and engraver. In the war cf 1812 she whipped the Guerriere in 30 minutes; next she thrashed the Java in two hours. But she capped the cli max in 1815 by whipping two British vessels, the frigate Cyane and the sloop Levant, in 40 minutes, when she captured them both.—Leslie's Weekly.

The Vaudeville Pianist.

One of the first things to »*"rj?r?"*rthe actor in the "cor L'huous" house is the absence 61 an orchestra. The orches tra's place is filled by pianists, who labor industriously five hours a clay each. As they practically live at the piano, their knowledge of current mu sic and their adaptability and skill are often surprising, but they are the most universally abused men I ever met. Every one who comes off the stage Monday afternoon says of the pianist that he ruins their songs; he spoils their acts; he has sinister designs on their popularity, and he wishes to wreck their future. The pianist, on the other hand, says he doesn't mind his work the five thumping, tyrannous hours—it is the excruciating agony of being compelled to sit through the ef forts of the imbecile beings on the stage. It is the point of view.—Serib ner's.

Frank Confession.

Some people are nothing if not out spoken and frank. Not long ago a well known young society lady was talk ing to a society man and the two got into an argument about the amount of physical exercise each required.

"Wh*y in the world don't you take more exercise?" said he. "I never see you walking. You're forever riding on the car. No matter if you have only three blocks to go, you never seem to want to do anything but jump on a car, even if it takes you longer to wait for it than it would to walk the whole distance."

"Well, I'll just have you know that if you wore shoe*' two sizes too small for you, you'd want to ride too."—De troit Fl-ee Press.

T E ABHBUBTON OHAM)IAK i TUESDAY, MAY 1, Jt9oo

— ' ; ; ~ : ; T~—! . , iB Prioted »ad published by Hbnry Wilms, o P«ter Street Ashburton, for the proprit ton, at their Office, Burnett Street, A*h* barton, TUESDAY. MAY 1, 1900.





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