On the second morning of his new drudgery, Tod heard a sudden uproar in the galley. It was after eleven and Red Mitchell had just come forward from setting the officers' table. His voice came to Tod, raised high in expostulation.
"Cut it out, cooky! You can't treat a friend of Mr. Hawkes like that. Ain't I right, now?"
"Get out before I heave yuh overside. The sight o' your face makes me sick."
"I'll complain to the captain, I will!"
"Get your tray and beat it. Gut me if I can stand you!"
Red emerged from the doorway, a tray in his hands. He hesitated and glanced in Tod's direction. His mouth curved in a derisive smile. "How d'ye like yer new job?" he essayed in a low tone.
The youth did not pause in the short swings of his hammer. "Pretty good," he said shortly. "How do you like being mess boy?"
"Mess boy, me eye! I'm the officers' steward, I am." He licked his chops. "And I don't have ter eat the garbage they gives the fo'c's'le now." With a triumphant grin he departed for the cabin aft.
At eleven-thirty Tod dropped his tools near the winch and procured his mess gear from the forecastle. The food was handed out the galley door and brought by Swede Jorgenson to number one hatch where the men crowded round it like wolves about a carcass.
"Now the kid ain't in the galley no more, the grub's rotten," commented Chips as he dug into the bucket of steaming black potatoes.
"It fair sickens me. Blimey, if it don't. Swill, I calls it. Swill."
"Yah, the cook—he don't like it neither."
"Aw, he don't, huh? Well, why does he serve it, then?"
"Blimey, he's got to—that's wy. Got the blarsted stuff cheap, they did, in Genoa. The spuds, now, they all run to sprouts; and the meat—it fair stinks." Toppy dipped his thin nose into his pannikin and wrinkled his face in a frown. "Phewl I wouldn't give this to pigs, I wouldn't."
Tod Moran crossed to the shadow of the forecastle and dropped to the deck near his brother, who was conversing with another fireman, Tony the Wop.
"This stuff is awful," Neil commented. "Can you go it, Tod?"
"A little. I'm not very hungry."
"You be seeck again, you eat thees." Tony waved a spoonful of stew in a precarious gesture of disdain. "It maka me seeck, too."
Neil stretched out his long legs in their dungarees and set his tin upon the deck. Breaking a piece of bread, he revealed innumerable weevils baked in the dough. With a frown of disgust, he tossed it overboard. "The men won't stand this much longer," he remarked. "The first place that hits them is their stomachs. They're almost ready to mutiny."
"Thees boat rotten." Tony wiped up the gravy with a slice of bread and gulped it down. "Why I ever leave San Francisco! I dunno. I stay there next time." He broke a long black cigar in the middle and passed half to Neil. "Theese Tuscano— heaven." His brown eyes, shadowed by dark lashes, smouldered with unquenched fire. "Those officers—"
Tod drank the lukewarm beverage of chicory and let his eyes sweep out across the sea. Sunlight shivered along the waves; here and there leaped bits of spray. "That looks like an island off the port beam, Neil. Is it?"
Neil nodded gravely. "We're near the Caribbean at last." He rose and scraped his tin plate overside.
A moment later, Tod followed him down the slimy steps to the washroom where the stench almost overpowered him. "We're drawing close to the time," Neil whispered as he hurriedly washed his mess tins. "I know it. Watch out."
"Oh, I'm all right. I'm on deck," Tod returned; "but, Neil, you might get caught down there in the stokehole. It's like a rat trap; you'd never get out."
"Hush!" Neil flashed him a warning glance as the grumbling seamen appeared above in the doorway.
In the forecastle, Tod dried his cup and plate and put them away in the cupboard beneath the steps. He turned in surprise to find the forecastle crowding with firemen as well as deck hands. What did it mean?
"Draw lots," rumbled the deep voice of Black Judson, "and see who goes aft with the complaint."
"Yeh, think they can feed us swill, they do. Blimey, we'll tell 'em! Got to get better grub at Cristobal or we'll complain to the port authorities."
"Yah, roll the bones."
"Takes too long. Say, there's the kid." Black Judson surveyed Tod with narrowed eyes. He spoke to the men now lining the bunks. "Say, what's the kid been doing lately? Nothin'. Let him go aft. Huh?"
Several men nodded in approval. "Sure thing. Let the kid be th' goat."
Tod Moran, crossing to his bunk, suddenly swung about. "No, you don't. I'll take my chances with the rest, but that's all."
"Blimey, now, don't get sore," Toppy soothed from his seat atop the littered table. "If yer talks nice, maybe the skipper'll put yer back in the galley."
"No, thanks, I've had enough of the galley. But why don't you ask me like a man?"
Toppy's lips curled in a wide grin over his yellow teeth. "Gawd strike me pink! The kid thinks 'e's growed up."
Tod glanced round at the circle of faces, eight or nine seamen and ten or twelve firemen; he perceived that they were immersed in a heated discussion. Beneath the surface of their caustic criticism lay unplumbed depths of bitterness. Driven like cattle, fed like swine, they had little recourse to the tyranny of their officers. It was not strange, he thought, that their bovine eyes appeared so stupid and their revels at times so sharkish.
A feeling of pity rushed through him. "All right," he conceded; "what shall I tell the captain?"
"Tell 'im we cawn't eat their bloomin' grub, that's wot. Tell 'im we wants better eats or we complain at Cristobal."
Tod listened to the flood of suggestions from the men. "Sure, I understand. I'll put it strong."
"Yeah, hurry up. Go now." They sat still to await his return.
With quickened heartbeats, Tod Moran departed. In the starboard alleyway he halted at the open door of the galley. The cook's powerful body was bent above the stove. At length he turned, long of limb and splendidly erect, and regarded Tod with an impassive gaze.
"Hello, Joe Macaroni. How are you?"
The youth thrust his hands deep in his pockets. "Oh, pretty good," he replied in a low tone. "The men are sending me aft to complain about the grub."
"Gut me, if I blame them! I hope they get filled with such officers." His curious eyes gleamed with unexpected fire. An iron fist thumped the table. "Don't they know I've raved till I'm black in the face? If the Old Man don't get better grub at the first port, I'll walk out." He stopped suddenly; a ruminating look came into his eyes. "Only—only—"
"Yes?"
Tod saw the singlet grow taut across the mighty chest. He waved a deprecatory hand. "Go on! Tell the cap'n—with my compliments."
Tod left with his thoughts absorbed by a question. Where did Tom Jarvis, so aloof, so unfathomable, now stand in the presence of the Araby's impending doom? Had the man done his best in the matter of the seamen's food; or was he in reality using his power as a wedge to separate still further the forecastle from the cabin aft? Tod, almost before he was aware of it, had knocked upon the cabin door.
"Come in," answered the gruff voice of Mr. Hawkes.
At the table beneath the open skylight, the first mate sat at his noon meal. Tod started as he beheld the recumbent form of Captain Ramsey lying on the red plush settee, one hand hanging limply overside.
"What d'ye want?" said the mate, pausing with knife in air.
Tod Moran wet his lips. "The men, sir, have sent me aft to speak to the captain."
"The cap'n?" Mr. Hawkes threw back his bearded face and laughed. "There he is." He pointed to the sodden figure on the settee.
Captain Ramsey, Tod saw, slept in a drunken stupor. His yellow skin hung over his bones; his weak mouth lay open with deep breaths sighing between his teeth.