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CHAPTER XXV
Brutus:
O that a man might know
The end of this day's business ere it come!
But it sufficeth that the day will end,
And then the end is known.
Julius Cæsar.
When Jack got on board the North Star he found that, although he had shipped as working passenger, the wily mate had taken him as one of the crew, with the intention, doubtless, of pocketing the wages which otherwise would have gone to the sailor who would have been employed. Several of the sailors were rather intoxicated, and the rest were just getting over a spree. They came down into the forecastle just before leaving, and seeing Jack there, whom they did not know, were very silent. One of them at last said:
"Is every man here a Union man?"
Jack knew he was not, and that, being ignorant of secret signs, he would perhaps be found out. He answered, "I don't belong to the Union."
The man who spoke first then, said sulkily: "That settles it; I'm going ashore. The rules says that no member shall sail on a vessel if there is any scab on board."
Jack understood from this, after a moment's thought, that this expression must refer to one who did not avail himself of the healthy privileges of the Sailors' Union.
He explained that he was only going as a passenger, and was not under pay.
This seemed to make the matter satisfactory, and after the malcontent quieted down they all got to work peacefully. It took them a long time to get all the canvas set while the tug towed the vessel out of and beyond the harbor.
Jack found he was no match for these men in the toil of making heavy canvas. He felt like a child among them. The halyards were so large and coarse to the touch, and after being exposed to the weather, their fiber was like fine wire and ate into his hands painfully, although the latter were well enough seasoned for yachting work. His hands almost refused to hold the ropes when they had got thoroughly scalded in the work, and by the time all the canvas was set he was ready to drop on the deck with exhaustion.
He was on the mate's watch. This man saw that, although Jack was physically inferior, his knowledge seemed all right. This puzzled the sailors. He was dressed in clothes which had looked rough and plebeian on the Ideal, but here he was far too well dressed. If there were tears in his clothes and in his hat, there were no patches anywhere, and this seemed to be, prima facie, a suspicious circumstance. He regretted that his clothes were not down to the standard. After being reviled on the yachts because they were so disreputable, he now felt that they were so particularly aristocratic that he longed for the garments of a tramp. He saw that if the sailors suspected that he was not one of themselves by profession they would send him to Coventry for the rest of the trip. This would be unpleasant, for as the men got sober they proved good-humored fellows in their way, although full of cranks and queer ideas.
At eight bells, on the first night, Jack came on deck in a long ulster, which, although used for duck-shooting and sailing for five years since it last saw King Street, was still painfully whole. The vessel was lying over pretty well and thrashing through the waves in creditable style. The watch just going off duty had "put it up" with the mate that Jack should be sent aloft to stow the fore-gafftopsail.
They could not make Jack out. And when he went up the weather-rigging, after slipping out of the ulster, every man on board except the captain was covertly watching him – wondering how he would get through the task. The topsail had been "clewed up" at the masthead – and was banging about in the strong wind like a suspended Chinese lantern.
Suppose a person were to tie together the four corners of a new drawing-room carpet, and were then to hoist it in this shape to the top of a tall pine tree bending in the wind to an angle of thirty degrees. Let him now climb up, and with a single long line master the banging mass by winding the line tightly around it from the top down to the bottom, and afterward secure the long bundle to the side of the tree. If this be done, by way of experiment, while the seeker after knowledge holds himself on as best he can by his legs, and performs the operation on a black night entirely by the sense of touch he will understand part of what our lake sailors have to do.
Jack, to say truly, had all he wanted. The sail was a new one. The canvas and the bolt-ropes were so stiff as to almost defy his strength. But he got it done and descended, tired enough. All hands were satisfied that he knew a good deal, and yet they said they were sure he was "not quite the clean wheat." The ulster had been very damaging.
The evening of the second day saw them still working down the lake, and having had some favorable slants of wind they had got well on their way. As Jack's watch went below at midnight, a fog had settled over the sea, and he was glad to get down out of the cold, and have a comfortable smoke before turning into his old camping blankets for the rest of his four hours off.
By the light of a bad-smelling tin lamp nailed against the Samson-post, and sitting on a locker beside one of the swinging anchor chains that came down through the hawse pipe from the deck above into the fore-peak under the man's feet, one of the sailors fell to telling one of his many adventures on the lakes. There was no attempt at humor in this story. It was a simple, artless tale of deadly peril, cold, exhaustion, and privation on our inland sea. It was told with a terrible earnestness, born of a realization of the awful anxiety that had stamped upon his perfect memory every little detail that occurred.
This was an experience when, in the month of December, the schooner he was then sailing on had been sent on a last trip from Oswego to Toronto. They had almost got around the Lighthouse Point at Toronto, after a desperately cold passage, when a gale struck them, and, not being able to carry enough canvas to weather the point, they were thus driven down the lake again with the sails either blown from the bolt-ropes or split to ribbons, with the exception of a bit of the foresail, with which they ran before the wind. To go to South Bay would probably mean being frozen in all winter, and perhaps the loss of the ship, so the captain headed for Oswego, hoping the snow and sleet would clear off to enable them to see the harbor when they got there. On the way down a huge sea came over the stern, stove in the cabin, and smashed the compasses.
"We hedn't kept no dead reckonin', an' we cudn't tell anyways how fast we wus goin'. We just druv' on afore it for hours. Cudn't see more'n a vessel's length anywheres for snow, and, as for ice, we wus makin' ice on top of her like you'd think we wus a-loadin' ice from a elevator; we wus just one of 'Greenland's icy mountings' gone adrift. Waal, the old man guv it up at last, and acknowledged the corn right up and up. Says he, 'Boys, she's a goner. We've druv' down below and past Oswego, and that's the last of her.'"
"This looked pretty bad – fur the old man to collapse all up like this; fur all on yer knows as well as I do that to get down below Oswego in a westerly gale in December means that naathin' is goin' to survive but the insurance. There's no harbors, ner shelter, ner lifeboats, ner naathin'. Yer anchors are no more use to yer off that shore than a busted postage-stamp. Thet's the time, boys, fur to jine the Salvation Army and trample down Satan under yer feet and run her fur the shore and pray to God for a soft spot and lots of power fer to drive her well up into a farm.
"Waal, gents, the old man tuckered out, and went off to his cabin fur to make it all solid with his 'eavenly parents, and two or three of us chaps as hed been watchin' things pretty close come to the conclusion thet we hedn't got below Oswego yet. So we all went in a body, as a kind o' depitation from ourselves, and says us to the old man: 'Hev you guv up the nevigation of this vessel? becus, ef yer hev, there's others here as wud like to take a whack at playin' captain.'
"'All right,' says the old man from his knees (fur he was down gettin' the prayers ready-made out of a book), 'I've guv her up,' says he; 'do you jibe your fores'l and head her fur the sutherd and look out for a soft spot. Yer kin do what yer likes with her.'
"So we jibes the fores'l then, just puttin' the wheel over and lettin' the wind do the rest of it, fer there was six inches of ice on to the sheets, and yer couldn't touch a line anywheres unless yer got in to it with a axe. Waal, the old fores'l flickers across without carryin' away naathin', and, just as we did this, another vessel heaves right across the course we bed been a-driven' on. Our helm was over and the ship was a-swingin' when we sighted her, or else we'd have cut her in two like a bloomin' cowcumber. And then we seed our chance. That ere vessel was goin' along, on the full kioodle, with every appearance of knowin' where she was goin' to – which we didn't. 'Hooray!' says we, 'we ain't below Oswego yet, and that vessel will show us the road. She's got the due course from somewheres, and she's our only chance.'
"And we follered her. You can bet your Sunday pants we was everlastin'ly right on her track. She was all we hed, boys, 'tween us and th' etarnal never-endin' psalm. Death seemed like a awful cold passage that time, boys! We wus all frost-bit and froze up ginerally; and clothes weren't no better'n paper onto us."
"But she had a leetle more fores'l onto her than we hed; and after a while she begun to draw away from us. We hed naathin' left more to set fer to catch up with her. We hollered to make her ease up, but she paid no attention. Guess she didn't hear, or thought we hed our compasses all right – which we hedn't. Waal, gents, it was a awful time. Our last chance was disappearin' in the snow-storm, and there wus us left there, 'most froze to death, and not knowin' where to go. Yer cudn't see her, thro' the snow, more'n two lengths ahead; and, when she got past that, all yer cud see was the track of her keel in the water right under our bows. Well, fellows, I got down furrud on the chains, and we 'stablished a line o' signals from me along the rest of them to the man at the wheel. If I once lost that tract in the water we wus done forever. Sometimes I wus afeared I hed lost it, and then I got it again, and then it seemed to grow weaker; and I thought a little pray to God would do no harm. And I lifts up my hand – so – "
The man had left his seat and was crouching on the floor as he told this part of the story. The words rolled out with a terrific energy as he glared down at the floor, stooping in the attitude in which he had watched the track in the water. The tones of his voice had a wild terror in them that thrilled Jack to the very core, and made him feel as if he could not breathe.
"And I lifts up me hand – so (and, gents, I wus lookin' at that streak in the water. I want yer to understand I was a-lookin' at it). And I lifts up me hand – so – and I says 'Holy Christ, don't let that vessel get off no farderer – '"
The story was never finished.
A sound came to them that seemed to Jack to be only a continuation of the horror of the story he had heard. A crash sounded through the ship and they were all knocked off their seats into the fore-peak with a sudden shock. They tumbled up on deck in a flash, and there they saw that a great steamer had mounted partly on top of the schooner's counter. The mainmast had gone over the side to leeward.
The schooner had been about to cross the steamer's course when they first saw her lights in the fog, and, partly mistaking her direction, the sailing captain had put his ship about. This brought the stern of the schooner, as she swung in stays, directly in line with the course of the steamer. The steamer's helm was put hard over, and the engines were reversed, but not until within fifty feet of the schooner. The stern of the schooner swung around as she turned to go off on the other tack, so that, although the stem or cutwater of the steamer got past, the counter of the schooner was struck and forced through the steamer's starboard bow under the false sides. When they struck, the schooner's stern was depressed in the seaway and the steamer's bow was high in the air, so that the latter received a deadly blow which tore a hole about six feet high by ten long in her bow. Both boats went ahead together, chiefly owing to the momentum of the huge steamer. And for a moment the steamer's false sides rested on what was left of the schooner's counter on the port side.
A man leaning over from the upper deck of the steamer cried:
"What schooner is that?"
"Schooner North Star, of Toronto," was the reply.
The man vaulted over the bulwarks and slid actively down the sloping side of the steamer to the deck of the schooner and looked around him. No sooner had he done so than the motion of the waves parted the two boats. The steamer ceased to move ahead. The forward canvas of the schooner had caught the wind and she was beginning to pay off on the port tack, the mainmast, mainsail, and rigging dragging in the water.
Jack, who was filled with helpless anxiety, then discovered that the steamer was the Eleusinian. At the same moment he heard a shriek from the bow of the steamer and there he saw Nina, her long hair driving behind her, beckoning him to come to help her. The steamer, filling like a broken bottle, had already taken one lurch preparatory to going down and Jack yelled:
"Jump, Nina! Jump into the water and I will save you!"
But Nina, not knowing that the steamer was going down, had not the courage to cast herself into the black heaving waves.
Jack saw this hesitation, and yelled to her again to jump. He made fast the end of a coil of light line, and then sprang to the bulwarks to jump overboard so that when he swam to the bows of the steamer Nina could jump into the water near him.
He knew without looking that the schooner, with no after-canvas set, could do nothing at present but fall off and drift away before the wind, as she was now doing, and as her one yawl boat had been smashed to dust in the collision, the only chance for Nina was for him to have a line in his hand whereby to regain the schooner as it drifted off. It was a wild moment for Jack, but his nerve was equal to the occasion. While he belayed the end of the light line to a ring on the bulwarks, he called to his mates on the schooner to let go everything and douse their forward canvas.
It takes a long time even to read what had to be done. What Jack did was done in a moment; but as he sprang to the bulwarks to vault over the side, a strong pair of arms seized him from behind and held him like a vice with his arms at his sides.
"Let me go," he cried, as he struggled in the grasp of a stranger.
"No, sir. You're wanted. I have had trouble enough to get you without letting you drown yourself."
Jack struggled wildly; but the more frantic he became the more he roused the detective to ferocity. He heaved forward to throw Dearborn over his head; but the two fell together, crashing their heads upon the deck, where they writhed convulsively.
The iron grip never relaxed. At last Jack, lifting Dearborn with him, got on his feet and, seizing something on the bulwarks to hold himself in position, he stopped his efforts to escape. "For God's sake," he cried brokenly, "for Christ's sake, let me go! See, there she is! She is going to be my wife!"
In his excitement Dearborn forgot that the woman on the steamer might have the stolen money with her. To him Jack's jumping overboard promised certain death and the loss of a prisoner.
As Jack tried to point to Nina, who was clasping the little flag-pole at the bow of the steamer – a white figure in the surrounding gloom, waving and apparently calling to him – he saw the steamer take a slow, sickening lurch forward, and then a long lurch aft. The bows rose high in the air, with that poor desolate figure clasping the flag-pole, and then the Eleusinian slowly disappeared.
For an instant the bows remained above the surface while the air escaped from the interior, and the last that could be seen was the white figure clinging desperately to the little mast as if forsaken by all. No power had answered her agonies of prayer for deliverance.
After the strong man who had pinioned Jack saw the vessel go down, he became aware that he was holding his culprit up rather than down. He looked around at his face, and there saw a pair of staring eyes that discerned nothing. He laid him on the deck then, and finally placed him in the after-cabin on the floor. Jack did not regain consciousness. His breathing returned only to allow a delirium to supervene. Dearborn and a sailor had again to hold him, or he would have plunged over the bulwarks, thinking the steamer had not yet sunk.
The captain's wife, who had been sleeping in the extra berth off the after-cabin, had been crushed between the timbers when the collision took place, and under the frantic orders of the captain the rest of the crew were trying to extricate the screaming woman. The mate had been disabled in the falling of the mainmast, so that no attempts were made to save those who were left swimming when the Eleusinian went down, and the schooner, under her forward canvas, sailed off, dragging her wreckage after her, slowly, of course, but faster than any one could swim. Thus no one was saved from the steamer except the detective, who had not thought of saving his own life when he had dropped to the deck of the schooner, but only of seizing Jack.
The mate was able, after a time, to give his directions while lying on the deck. The wreckage was chopped away, and the vessel was brought nearer the wind to raise the injured port quarter well above the waves until canvas could be nailed over the gaping aperture. When this was done they squared away before the wind, hoisted the center-board, and made good time up the lake. They had a fair wind to Port Dalhousie – the only place available for dockyards and refitting – where they arrived at two o'clock in the day.
After raving in delirium until they arrived at Port Dalhousie, Jack fell off then into a sleep, and when the Empress of India was ready to leave at four o'clock for Toronto, Dearborn woke him up and found that his consciousness seemed to have partly returned. The detective was pleased that the disabled vessel had sought a Canadian port, where his warrant for Jack's arrest was good. However, the prisoner made no resistance, and at nine o'clock he was duly locked up at Toronto, having remained in a sort of stupor from which nothing could arouse him.
CHAPTER XXVI
The time is out of joint; – O cursed spite.
That I was ever born to set it right.
Hamlet.
As the afternoon wore on, on that day when the bank lost its $50,000, Geoffrey Hampstead was back at his work as usual. He did not change his waistcoat while at his rooms, because he thought this might be remarked. He merely left the money there, and went back to his work as if nothing had happened. The excitement among the clerks in the bank was feverish. Geoffrey let them know what he and Dearborn had seen in Jack's room, and that the confusion there clearly showed that he had gone off somewhere. Most faces looked black at this, but there were several who, in spite of the worst appearances, refused to believe in Jack's guilt. Geoffrey was one of them. Geoffrey was quite broken down. Everybody felt sorry for him. He had made a great friend of Jack, and every one could see that the blow had almost prostrated him.
Toward the end of the afternoon he said to a couple of his friends: "I wish you fellows would dine with me to-night. I feel as if I had to have somebody with me."
These two did so. In the evening they picked up some more of the bank men, and all repaired to Geoffrey's quarters. They saw he was drinking heavily, and perhaps out of fellow-feeling for a man who had had a blow, they also drank a good deal themselves, and lapsed into hilarity, partly in order to draw Geoffrey out of his gloom.
At one o'clock the night was still young so far as they were concerned, and the liquor in the rooms had run short. Geoffrey did not wish to be left alone. The noise and foolishness of his friends diverted his thoughts from more unpleasant subjects. When the wine ran out, he said they must have some more. They said it would be impossible to get it; but Geoffrey said Patsey Priest could procure it, and he rang on Mrs. Priest's bell until Patsey appeared, looking like a disheveled monkey. He was received with an ovation. Geoffrey gave him the money, and sent him to a neighboring large hotel to get a case of champagne. When he returned, having accomplished his errand, the young gentlemen were enthusiastic over him. He was made to stand on a table and take an affidavit on an album that he had brought the right change back. Then some jackass said a collection must be taken up for Patsey, and he headed the list with a dollar. Of course, everybody else gave a dollar also, because this was such a fine idea. Mr. St. George Le Mesurier Hector Northcote was delighted with Patsey. "Mr. Priest," he said, "you are a gentleman and a man of finish; but it grieves me to notice that your garments, although compatible with genius, do not, of themselves, suggest that luxury which genius should command. Wait here for a moment; you must be clad in costly raiment."
Mr. St. G. Le M. H. Northcote darted unsteadily, not to say lurched, into Geoffrey's room, looking for that "very dreadful waistcoat" which he had been pained to see Geoffrey wearing during the day. He found it at once in a closet, and, wrapping it in among several trousers and coats which he had selected at random, he came out again with the bundle in his hand.
"What are you doing there with my clothes?" asked Geoffrey, rising good-humoredly, but inwardly nervous, and going toward the bedroom as Northcote came out.
"I am going to give them to a gentleman whose station in life is not properly typified in his garb."
Geoffrey did not see the waistcoat lying inside one of the coats in the bundle, and so he thought it better to humor the idea than run any chances. He had taken off this objectionable article before going to dinner, intending to come back and burn it when he had more time.
He took the bundle from Northcote and handed it to Patsey as he dragged that individual to the door. "Here," he said. "Don't come down in rags to my room again. Now, get out."
Patsey disappeared hurriedly through the door. He had his own opinion of these young men who were so ready to pay for the pleasure of knocking him about, and if he had been required to classify mammalia he would not have applied the old name of homo sapiens to any species to which they belonged.
The next day, to kill time during the anxious hours, Geoffrey went out yachting with Dusenall and several others. As the wind fell off, they did not reach the moorings again until late in the evening, when they dined at the club-house on the island, and slept on the Ideal instead of going home. After an early breakfast the next morning they were rowed across the bay, and Geoffrey reached the bank at the usual time.
In this way, having been away from town all night, he knew nothing of the news that had spread like wildfire through certain circles on the previous night, that Jack Cresswell had been arrested and brought to Toronto. The first person whom he met at the door of the bank was the omnipresent Detective Dearborn, who smiled and asked him what he thought of the news.
"What news?" asked Geoffrey, his eyes growing small.
"Why, this," he replied, handing Geoffrey one of the morning papers, which he had not yet seen. Geoffrey read the following, printed in very large type, on the first page:
CLEVER CAPTURE!
JACK CRESSWELL, THE VICTORIA BANK ROBBER ARRESTED!
THE STOLEN $50,000 SUPPOSED TO BE NOW RECOVERED!
EXCITING CHASE AND EXTRAORDINARY DETECTIVE WORK!
A BULL'S-EYE FOR DETECTIVE DEARBORN!
PRISONER CAPTURED DURING A COLLISION BETWEEN TWO VESSELS!
WRECK OF THE STEAMER ELEUSINIAN!!
ALL ON BOARD LOST!!
EXCEPT THE WILY DETECTIVE
GREAT EXCITEMENT!!
FURTHER DISCLOSURES ABOUT THE BANK!!!
THE BLOATED ARISTOCRACY SHAKEN TO ITS FOUNDATIONS!!!!
Detective Dearborn, on his arrival in Toronto, was so certain of convicting his prisoner that he threw the hungry newspaper reporters some choice and tempting morceaux. And, from the little that he gave them, they built up such an interesting and imaginative article that one was forced to think of the scientific society described by Bret Harte, when Mr. Brown —
Reconstructed there
From those same bones an animal that was extremely rare
Indeed, from the glowing colors in which the detective's chase was painted, from the many allusions to Jack's high standing in society and his terrible downfall, from a full description of Jack as being the petted darling of all the unwise virgins of the upper ten, and from the way that the name of Jack was familiarly bandied about, one necessarily ended the article with a disbelief in any form of respectability, especially in the upper classes, and with a profound conviction that society generally was rotten to the core. The name "Jack" seemed now to have a criminal sound about it, and reminded the reader of "Thimble-rig Jack" and "Jack Sheppard," and other notorieties who have done much to show that people called "Jack" should be regarded with suspicion.
Mr. Dearborn watched Geoffrey's face as he glanced over the newspaper. Dearborn had a sort of an idea from all he could learn, that Jack had had a longer head than his own to back him up, and, for reasons which need not be mentioned now, he suspected that there was more than one in this business.
However, Geoffrey knew that he was being watched, and his nerve was still equal to the occasion. He turned white, as a matter of course – so did everybody in the bank – and Dearborn got no points from his face.
Geoffrey handed him back the paper, and said commiseratingly: "Poor Jack, he has dished himself, sure enough, this time."
Dearborn served him then with a subpœna to attend the hearing before the police magistrate at an hour which was then striking, and Geoffrey walked over to the police court with him.
Standing-room in the court that day was difficult to get. In the morning well-worn habitués of that interesting place easily sold the width of their bodies on the floor for fifty cents.
Maurice Rankin had rushed off to see Jack in the morning. He knew nothing about the evidence, but he felt that Jack was innocent. He found his friend apparently in a sort of stupor, and was hardly recognized by him.
"You must have the best lawyer I can get to defend you, Jack," he said.
No answer.
"Don't you intend to make any defense or have any assistance? I can get you a splendid man in two minutes."
Jack shook his head slowly, and said, with an evident effort:
"No. I don't care."
Rankin did not know what to make of him; but, finally, he said:
"Well, if you won't have any person better, I will sit there, and if I see my way to anything I'll perhaps say a word. You do not object to my doing this, do you?" Jack's answer, or rather the motion of his head, might have meant anything, but Rankin took it to mean assent.
At half-past nine, Jack was led from the cell outside to the court-room by two policemen who seemed partly to support him.
A thrill ran through his old friends when they saw him. His face was ghastly, and his jaw had dropped in an enervated way that gave him the appearance of a man who had been fairly cornered and had "thrown up the sponge" in despair. He had not been brushed or combed for two nights and a day. He still wore his old, dirty sailing clothes. The sailor's sheath-knife attached to his leather belt had been removed by the police. His partial stupor was construed to be dogged sullenness, and it assisted in giving every one a thoroughly bad impression as to his innocence.
After he was placed in the dock he sat down and absently picked at some blisters on his hands, until the magistrate spoke to him, and then the policemen ordered him to stand up. When he stood thus, partly raised above the spectators, his eyes were lusterless and stolid and he looked vacantly in the direction of the magistrate.
"John Cresswell, it is charged against you that you did, on the 25th day of August last, at the city of Toronto, in the county of York, feloniously steal, take, and carry away fifty thousand dollars, the property of the Victoria Bank of Canada," etc.
Rankin saw that Jack did not comprehend what was going on. He got up, and was going to say something when the magistrate continued:
"Do you wish that the charge against you shall be tried by me or with a jury at the next assizes, or by some other court of competent jurisdiction?"
No answer.
The magistrate looked at Jack keenly. It struck him that the prisoner had been imbibing and was not yet sober, and so he spoke louder, and in a more explanatory and informal tone.
"You may be tried, if you like, on some other day, before the county judge without a jury, or you may wait till the coming assizes and be tried with a jury, or, if you consent to it, you may be tried here, now, before me. Which do you wish to do?"
Still no answer.
Rankin considered. He knew nothing of the evidence, and thought it impossible for Jack to be guilty. He did not wish to relinquish any chances his friend might have with a jury, and he felt that Jack himself ought to answer if he could. He went to him and said simply, for it was so difficult to make him understand:
"Do you want to be tried now or afterward?"
Jack nodded his head, while he seemed to be trying to collect himself.
"You mean to be tried now?"
Jack looked a little brighter here, and said weakly:
"Certainly – why not?"
Detective Dearborn, had not been idle since his return; and all the witnesses that the prosecution required were present.
