CHAPTER XI
In Which I See That There Is Tragedy in This Ocean Race
I was dumfounded by this story of Job Perkins. Later it was corroborated by the other hands. It had really been Adoniram Tugg and the Sea Spell that had sailed near enough to this ship for conversation between the two skippers. And the Sea Spell actually had that old whaleship in tow.
This was the astonishing part of it: The fact that the Firebrand was not at the bottom of the seas. I thought I had seen her rained upon by ice—beaten down by the bursting berg—driven under the leaping waves.
Yet, come to think of it, the rotating icefield had turned so as to hide the frozen ship from us aboard the Gypsey Girl when the ice split up, and a curtain of ice-mist and leaping waves had really hidden the spot where the Firebrand lay.
I had taken it for granted that the frozen ship—more than a year and a half in the ice—had found her grave right then and there. But I remembered how sound the hulk of the whaleship seemed when I went aboard of her. Only her spars and upper works were wrecked. She had collided with the ice and slid right out of the sea at the collision. Perhaps the blow had never made her leak a drop!
And then it smote upon my mind that the man of mystery, Tugg’s partner, must be alive, too.
That stern, sturdy man with his gray beard and hair, and his wonderfully sharp eyes, who had stuck by the frozen ship when his mates were driven off, and had battled against the gang of sealers to preserve the treasure of oil from their greed—this man in whose presence I had felt a thrill not yet to be explained even in my most serious times of thought. Why, Professor Vose must be alive! There was no doubt of that.
I could remember very distinctly our brief interview upon the frozen ship. How quickly he had disarmed me and showed me that he was my master. I could imagine that he had not given up hope even when the ice split up and the Firebrand had slid back into the water amid the crashing bergs and boiling sea.
Whoever this man was, he was a person of marked character. He had impressed me deeply and I felt that I could never really get him out of my mind. Be he Jim Carver, the renegade that had stolen money from the fish firm back in Bolderhead, or Professor Vose, the marvelous scientist that Tugg claimed him to be, the man who had risked his life for the fortune of oil aboard the Firebrand, was an individual whom I should never forget.
I can’t say that I was as pleased, as the hours passed, with my situation aboard the Seamew as I had been on her sister ship. In the first place, I had no proper niche here. I was not one of the crew. I was really an outsider—and from the enemy’s camp at that.
There seemed to be a different spirit in this crew. They spoke more bitterly of the Gullwing’s company. They seemed to have no good word for Captain Bowditch and Mate Gates, and it was from Job Perkins that I finally got an insight into the real significance of the rivalry between the sister ships.
“Ye wanter jump quick, young feller, when Mr. Barney speaks,” Job advised me.
“I know. That is the way it is with our Mr. Barney,” I replied.
“Shucks! Jim Barney’s another sort of a man from Alf Barney.”
“Not to the naked eye,” I responded, laughing. “I couldn’t tell ’em apart.”
“That’s because you don’t know either of them very well.”
“Why—I don’t know. I think I know our Mr. Barney pretty well. He’s a smart second officer and altogether a good fellow, too.”
“Smart! Why, he’s a fool to his brother Alfred,” declared Job. “They ain’t in the same class—them boys. No, they ain’t.”
“Why, I thought they were considered very much alike,” I murmured.
“Alf will show Jim, I reckon, how much better he is,” and Job chuckled. “Ye see, they useter be the best of friends, though brothers——”
“What do you mean by that?” I cried. “Hadn’t brothers ought to be the best of friends?”
“Never had a brother, had ye?”
“No. For which I’m awfully sorry.”
“I had brothers. You needn’t be sorry,” said Job, in his sneering way. “And I reckon that is the way Alf Barney looks at it. Brothers can be in your way, I tell ye. I found it so. So does Alf Barney. Them boys is rivals.”
“Well, so are Captain Si and Captain Joe.”
“Huh! Them old tarriers!” snorted Job, very disrespectfully. “They only play at fighting each other. These Barney boys mean business.”
“Well, it’s something about their uncle. You know, their uncle, old Jothan Barney, is senior partner of the firm?”
“Yes.”
“And he’s put ’em into the business. Not that he’s showed favoritism. No. These Barney twins air good seamen.”
“I’m glad you will allow that,” I said, rather sharply.
“Yes. Jim is good; but Alf is a corker! a crackajack!” chuckled Job. “They begun to be rivals in a serious way previous to the v’yge before last.
“Ye see, there ain’t but one rung at the top o’ any ladder. And there can’t but one man stand at the top of a pyramid. When old Jothan passes in his checks there will be just one chance for a nephew to take his place.”
“You mean that the two boys are jealous of who will get the old man’s money?”
“And stand in his place in the business,” said Job. “Jothan isn’t one for dividing power. He’s always been the cock o’ the walk in the firm. He’ll expect the nephew that takes his place to be the boss. Can’t divide responsibility. That is the way he looks at it.”
“And a bad thing for the Barney boys,” I muttered.
“Well, he puts it to his nephews two years ago,” continued Job Perkins. “He tells them they’re running too even. He can’t tell which is the best man. He don’t believe they are just alike, even if they be twins.
“‘You git up and dust, boys,’ he said. ‘One of ye do something different from the other. Ye air jest of a pattern. I can’t tell which is the man and which is his reflection in the glass.’
“Ye understand, old Jothan didn’t know which to put down in his will to be boss of his money and the firm. The boys have got to show him. He gives ’em both the same chance, but he expects one to beat the other.
“Old Jothan begun before the mast. He believes in the boys working out their salvation aboard ship. And even so near a thing as these two craft racin’, and one beating the other, will tell in the favor of the second mate who’s aboard the winning ship.”
“I can’t believe it!” I said to Job.
“You don’t hafter—only watch. Old Jothan is getting tired of holding on to the business. He wants to be shown who is the best man of the two boys. That best one he’ll take into the House after this voyage—and you mark my word, sonny, that best man is going to be Mr. Alf Barney.”
I didn’t know whether Job had told me the truth, or not; but I was sorry to learn of the sordid rivalry between the two brothers. It was tragic—no less; and I wondered what would come of it in the end?
But my wildest imaginings would have been tame indeed beside what really was to be the outcome of the misunderstanding between Jim and Alf Barney.